


Tarantella

by JD_Riley



Series: Victorian A/B/O [10]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Bringing in the Third, Cunnilingus, Established Relationship, F/F, FemaleAlpha, FemaleBeta, FemaleOmega, Historical, Lesbian Sex, Lesbian Shenanigans, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Omega Verse, Omegaverse, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, Victorian, Victorian Omegaverse, a/b/o dynamics, threeway
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-21
Updated: 2019-09-27
Packaged: 2020-05-15 23:37:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 46,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19306174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JD_Riley/pseuds/JD_Riley
Summary: Olivia Idlewind and Florence Stone already have everything they need in each other.  Unfortunately, being debutantes in London society comes with a caveat: you're supposed to get married.  Their scheme is to find an Alpha who doesn't mind that their wife comes with an extra tag-along.  As their plans tumble into motion, they begin to question themselves and their relationship--can a dashing Alpha come between them?Alex Straffton's biggest fear is turning into her philandering father.  Worried constantly that unfaithfulness is in her very blood, she flees her father's country of Italy and takes her mother's maiden name to attempt to capture a mild little English wife who will keep her grounded.  Unfortunately for all of Alex's plans and moral rigidity, she unwittingly becomes the target of a plot to capture her into a trio of trouble!  Beguiled by a daring honey-haired temptress, Florence Stone, and tripping over herself at the very sight of her Beta "friend", Alex is beginning to wonder--is it worth fighting the devil in your blood?





	1. Chapter 1

Olivia thought that her most favorite thing in the whole of the world was lying on her side, staring at her mate who was sleeping peacefully next to her, her face completely relaxed in an adorable slumbering expression that had her mouth slightly open so that only the smallest trickle of saliva could escape to dampen the linen of her pillow. Her usually well-coiffed blonde hair was a veritable nest of locks and strands, tossed everywhere as she slept and sometimes comically caught by the moisture that shined on her soft, plump lips. Florence Stone was by far the most stunningly beautiful creature that had ever graced the polished floors of any ballroom in London. She swished about in her gowns and feathers, hiding a sly smile behind her fan. She flirted endlessly with the Beta boys and spurned the Alphas with flicks of her hair. She was ethereal, other-worldly, unlike anything Olivia had ever seen before...and she was in her bed, pale and naked and utterly in love.

Whispered, tearful confessions in the middle of the night had brought them together and it was those potent Omega emotions that gripped at Olivia's heart and squeezed at her until she could scarce breathe. That the both of them could have kept their emotions at bay for long was now impossible to imagine. She loved this girl with every ounce of herself and she had shown it in the smallest of ways—the most Beta-like and subversive. She had made certain to become the girl's rock, the one that would hold her hand in tense circumstances and keep her grounded in case something were to go awry. Like any decent Idlewind, she had become like a protector for a little wayward soul and that soul was, of course, Florence who had captured her imagination and her affection so easily.

That she was a woman was of no consequence. She had known for some time that she was far more apt to find the Omegas to be to her liking than any of the Beta men or the Alphas who prowled the dance floors. She found them inexplicably  _ cute _ in ways she could not define. Attractive and vulnerable, the Omegas were simply far more interesting for her...but to get near them? To interact with them? To find them to have any affection toward a Beta girl at all even simply as friends? It was rare indeed and it was only through sheer providence that Malcolm Stone should have had a brother-in-law who was a Beta man and no other recourse to introduce his daughter into society. Beta-centric soirees were often the place where Omegas became the oddball but Florence...oh dear Florence could captivate a room. Her voice, her spirit was enough!

It was enough to cause Olivia to prop herself up in order to press a soft, chaste kiss to her lover's cheek, smoothing locks of her hair behind her ear and watching her twitch and groan with a heart fit to burst. It felt as though she was overflowing with the warmth that spread through her and her face was burning from her flush as the counterpane slipped to reveal the swell of Florence's perfect little breast. All the times she had fit her lips just so around the Omega’s dusky pink nipples, still Olivia felt the draw of it again and she felt the sting of shame in becoming a selfish lover...selfish in her selflessness. She wanted Florence to forever feel just as queenly as she was.

Instead of submitting to her baser instincts, Olivia instead moved the counterpane to cover her lover prudently, tucking the blankets around her very softly so that she did not wake. It was for naught, it seemed, as the Omega's long, dark lashes fluttered and she mewled a tiny mewl as she half-woke.

“Oh darling,” Olivia fretted quietly, “do not wake...I did not mean to disturb you.”

“Mmm,” she smiled, her eyes finding Olivia through the dim. “But it is such wonder to be awakened by you, my mate.”

Olivia felt her cheeks warming even still. “Shh, do not make me flustered. I cannot possibly have my heart beat any faster than it has done so just by peering over you while you slept.”

“How deviant of you to spy upon me,” she grinned.

“If you ask me to never look upon you again, you must be content with my refusal to acquiesce. Should I be barred from looking upon you whether in your sleep or your waking, I will be sought for arrest or assassination for I never shall quit.”

“Stop your conjecture. I would never ask.” She giggled, lifting her hand to Olivia's temple to thread her fingers into auburn locks. “Mmm, I do like the bed in your family's town house. This is much more comfortable than the one at the estate.”

“Why did you not say such before? I would have the one at Netherfield changed.”

“I did not wish to be a bother.”

Olivia sighed, still amused, and leaned over her mate to nuzzle at her throat to tickle her. In the aftermath of Florence's small struggles and squeals, she peered down at her again, warm in her love. “You could never become a bother to me, darling.”

An odd shadow of emotion seemed to pass over Florence's visage for a moment and Olivia smoothed a thumb over her brow.

“What is it, darling?”

The Omega's lips were tight for a second and her eyes slipped over Olivia's shoulder. “It is...well it is only that we are in London again. I...well, how will I pass through this season? It will not be the same as the last and we are here again with the same expectations.”

“Not quite the same.”

“Well no...I do not  _ have _ to marry a man to save myself and my Oma. Thank God for Baron Rainton...but there is still the expectation that I will marry...and that  _ you _ will marry.”

“Or we become old spinsters,” Olivia stated lightly, “together forever in a grand old house that my sister lets us rot in forever.”

“Rot?” Florence giggled.

“Well that is what the ton would think we were doing. What we would really be doing would not be fit for their sensitive ears.” She leaned over and pressed her lips against her lover's, begging to be accepted. When she was, she plundered the girl's mouth in a sensuous exploration that would have made every virgin Omega in the ballrooms squeal with excitement. Florence, of course, was harder to startle, the girl shifting about in order to push upward and roll so that she could come on top of Olivia, pressing her down into the pillows while she straddled and dominated. She was a powerful little Omega...that was for damned sure. “Mmm,” Olivia moaned upward in her mouth, now the one who was nestled into the luxuriant softness of the pillows.

Florence's lips were plush and swollen from the kiss when she withdrew. “My Oma will be my guardian this year despite his marital bliss. Do you think it possible that perhaps he could be distracted by a certain Baron?”

“My sister Hannah is to be mine,” Olivia replied, “Do you think it possible that she could be distracted as well?”

Florence's mouth ticked upward a little. “I think I may have a bit of an advantage when it comes to distracting my chaperone. He is a randy devil and Simon is only too happy to go along with any scheme that involves undressing him.”

“Gracious, how do you speak of your Oma like this?”

She laughed. “I'm not some kind of stray innocent who does not recognize that my parents made love. In fact, I daresay my Oma was quite used to making love  _ much of the time. _ Now that he's got an Alpha again, I cannot say that it surprises me that he should be very happy to do so as much as he can.”

Olivia stuck out her tongue. “I cannot imagine my mother and father making love.”

“What about your sisters?”

“I try my best not to get such images in my head. Though I do wonder sometimes about Hannah and our dearest Miles.”

Florence sat at her waist, her fingertips gently circling the Beta's nipples, tightening them to peaks. “Mayhap one day you should ask your sister how they get on. Hannah is the most practical of your sisters, surely she would tell you.”

“With a flush to her toes, no doubt.”

“Well, perhaps.”

Olivia smiled, reaching up to toy with her mate's breasts in the same fashion that she found herself toyed with, biting her lip with Florence's small gasp. “I suppose perhaps I should ask Val about these sorts of indecent things. He has been quite open about most aspects I choose to inquire about...surely he would have some insights.”

“Olivia?” she peeped, her breaths uneven.

“Yes, darling?”

“Would you...would you...” her scent, sweet and sticky as caramel, tinged with a potent lust.

“You'll have to finish your sentence should I begin to entertain saying yes.”

Chided and sassy about it, the girl gently gave Olivia's nipples a pinch. “I was to ask if you might...put your mouth to me.”

“Of course I will, darling. Come, hold the headboard and lower yourself down.” This was, Olivia had decided, one of her absolute favorite things to do. At the first, it had seemed a little odd but in the end, she was drawn to it and could not even begin to think of her life without it. The musky sweet flavor of her mate was like nectar to her, a reverent honey bee. She guided the girl upward and drew her down until she could part the blonde curls between her thighs with her tongue and kiss her with erotic passion that burned in her blood. “Mmm,” she hummed, exploring the taste of her lover with every ounce of lust she could hold. That Florence wanted and asked for this was what truly captivated her.

It was not so common for Betas to be so desirable. With Florence, she felt more than desirable. She felt needed and, above all else, appreciated. It was more than enough and as though it weren't, Florence even made her feel  _ loved _ . Gracious, it was practically more than a girl could ask for even from some of the Beta gentlemen.

She sucked and nibbled, taking everything Florence had to give as the girl let out sharp panting breaths peppered with short and quiet impassioned cries. Her hips moved over Olivia's lips, jerking sometimes as though the pleasure was a little too much. Of course, the Beta teased her, swiping over the intensely sensitive nubbin between the girl's legs with the flat of her tongue just to cause her to shudder and recoil at least once or twice, stifling shrieks as she did so. With such a practice, it wasn't long before she was a shivering mess of an Omega, tuckered out by her third orgasm of the night and lying in the scent-soaked sheets, tangled up with her mate.

“ _ Liv... _ ” she sighed, her body still twitching in the aftermath. “One day I will become as good as you at this. Would I, if I could only reduce you to this...”

“I think it has more to do with your body's peculiar reactions. Perhaps it is something to do with being an Omega?” She, herself, had never been so sensitive as Florence was and she had no knowledge to provide an explanation for it. Still, she found it fun and interesting to dote upon a lover who was easy to bring to peak.

“I am still vexed, even after,” Florence confided. “How shall we deal with our families? How will we get away with simply being with each other? I am not willing to lose you, Liv.”

“And I am not willing to lose  _ you _ , Florence,” she replied. It was far more likely that this would be the case, of course. “The Alphas will be looking to pick you off and that simply will not do. I will be very jealous should your attentions be taken from me by some brute.”

“Then I will not entertain any brutes,” she sighed, the back of her hand resting over her forehead as she still recovered. “None at all.”

“Hmm...perhaps...perhaps one. Or two. But not brutish brutes. Only sensible and meek little brutes. Perhaps Betas.”

Florence eyed her with a quirked brow.

“You know, to stem the flow of questions. It would seem rather odd if you spurned every single one.”

“You could bear to see me with an Alpha?”

“If it meant that we were to remain secret,” she provided pragmatically. “Of course...I wouldn't mind should an Alpha be...” Her face felt a flush of heat and her voice caught in her throat. Gracious, could she truly entertain this notion?

“Should an Alpha be...what?”

“Well...” She gazed at her lover, lifting herself up to peer down over the perfection that was a nude Florence Stone. “Well I shouldn't be averse to watching an Alpha...” She shook her head. “Well...to...to... _ sharing you. _ ”

Florence sat up, shocked. “What?”

“That is to say that...it would be quite erotic to watch you...be...”

Her expression spread into an incredulous grin. “You  _ are _ a deviant, Olivia Idlewind! Goodness gracious and I thought you Betas mild and boring creatures. Here you all are and hiding the most incredible sexual perversions.” She let out a little laugh. “Honestly, Olivia, truly?”

She hid her face in her hands but spoke through them. “I have thought about it sometimes. That you would be quite beautiful taken...”

“Taken by some brutish Alpha who would put on a little show for you? Oh goodness, I've never heard of such a thing.”

“You should put it from your mind then,” Olivia told her, taking her hands from her face and fluffing the blankets around them for naught else to do with them. “I suppose you would not be so keen in sharing  _ me _ so...”

“Olivia, should I find the both of us an Alpha who would not mind the two of us—and how could he, really—then our season would certainly be much more entertaining, wouldn't it?” She was giggling now. “Not only that but it seems to me that this may be the perfect guise...then not a soul should be suspicious. Perhaps we can even talk him into courting the both of us...some men are wont to play from both hands, are they not?”

“Oh but then they'll be chatting us up in the scandal papers pitting us against one another.”

“Only the better for us to seem enemies rather than lovers,” Florence smiled, laying back down among the sheets and reaching for a paper fan that lay on the bedside table, languidly fanning herself with it. “A very exciting plan.”

“It is not a plan, it is a fantasy,” Olivia told her. “Aside, how in the world would we ever find an Alpha willing to go along with some bizarre and insane scheme? He would have to marry someone and he would be wasting time with us.”

“Wasting time? Alphas always wish for secret kisses in gardens and taking lovers they ought not to...he will find a wife one day. Mayhap she will be one of us.”

“And the other one of us?”

Florence grinned at her again. “The mistress...of both of us.”

Olivia frowned. “I daresay I would rather not be perceived as his mistress. I think my sister would have something to say about that.”

“Well, we could sort out those details later then. Right now, this seems like a fantastic pursuit. How fantastical. I think we should consider this our fun for this season. There should be lots of dancing and kissing and...” she reached out a hand to Olivia's shoulder, stroking her with the back of her fingers. “Lots of sex.”

“Dearest, I think you and I will likely be the most randy of debutantes London has ever seen.” She rolled her eyes and sighed. “If we were to rope some poor unsuspecting Alpha into the mixture, I daresay we could be the most thoroughly-sexed girls who've ever pranced across a ballroom.”

“Mmm,” Florence purred. “It is much too bad that most of the Alpha Lords are men. I do not think myself much to enjoy the scratching of whiskers in the morning. Especially nowhere near my nethers.”

“Oh yes,” she agreed. “I hadn't thought of that...but I suppose beggars cannot become choosers. He will likely have a rather large...er...”

Florence giggled. “Penis.”

Olivia giggled along with her. “Right. Gracious, I do not know how I will survive a night with an Alpha without laughing. They do look so ridiculous. They do not have all the softness you have. All angles and masculine ruggedness.”

“Bleh,” Florence said. “Whatever. Should he be of a good heart then I am willing to overlook his ugliness...provided he is very handsome.”

The Beta laughed overly hard at that, having to cover her mouth with her hand while she rolled toward her mate. When her laughter subsided, she took Florence into her arms and pulled the covers up over them again, cuddling warm and content together in feminine softness. When the room was quiet again and all that was left was the subtle sounds of scattered early morning birdsong through the glass of the window, she murmured into her Omega's hair. “You are a very naughty girl. I think I will love you for a very long time, Miss Stone. I think the rest of my life.”

The girl held her tighter, nestling her nose into the curve of her throat. “If that is true then you should know that you will be in good company. I believe I am fated to love you as well...and gracious I think I know that it will certainly be until the end of my days.”

“Shame I cannot marry you.”

“What does the church know of love?”

Olivia sighed. “Clearly nothing.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is going to be a beautiful story with lots and lots of lesbian sex. If you're interested, if you like it, please give me a shout in the comments. It's going to be a great summer, everyone.


	2. Chapter 2

There had been a Beta girl. She'd been of average height, blonde hair, whimsical though not in the sort of ways that Omegas were. Of course, she'd been completely and utterly ambivalent toward Alex. There was, she thought, no woman in London who would turn and see an Alpha as bronzed as she was and think her suitable. After all, it was difficult enough being an Alpha and a _woman_ no matter one’s circumstances or wealth. She leaned against the back of her chair while she watched the gentlemen play billiards, sipping her brandy with her ankles crossed.

There was a haze in the air and it wasn't too difficult to feel as though one might have been far too desperate in the smokey halls of Whites. She'd been to far too many parties already and absolutely none of them had been enjoyable in the least. Not when she'd found out that the sweet blonde thing she had been admiring from afar had managed to find herself a considerably older Beta gentleman who could treat her like a princess and not have the dubious distinction of having too much scent or not enough tact. Alex took another swig of her brandy and then pressed her teeth together with her tacit frustrations. She'd only danced with the girl twice, unable to catch her attentions. Her name had been Violetta Frenell and she would have made the most mild and faithful wife.

Faithfulness, as it turned out, was one of Alex's most prized qualities. She supposed it had come from the manner in which her father relentlessly pursued Omegas across multiple countries and left her dear mother to while away her heats alone. Apples never did fall far from the tree, he used to tell her, and that for an Alpha, it was a matter of being ill-equipped to resist indulgences. She refused to believe that of herself. She refused to believe that of anyone she respected and cared for and for that reason she held in high esteem those who did not take mistresses—no matter how fashionable the practice.

When her brandy was finished, she set it down next to her upon the side table and was pleasantly surprised when a girl came to hand her another one, dipping near to her to place it in her hand and to give her a cheerful little smile. She took it gratefully and watched Marksdown playfully tapping Griggsby on the shoulders with his pool cue, the boys chiding each other and laughing as they slowly got more and more drunk. They were like children many times and, she guessed, they were here because they enjoyed the company of their own kind. Alphas. Having presumed for most of her life that she would remain a Beta, she felt rather alone in her femaleness and her ideals of a rigid and mild marriage.

These men seemed less interested in quiet and more interested in a certain type of _wildness_ that was probably personified in the whims and wanton whispers of passionate Omegas. Alex put her elbow on the armrest of the chair and rested her cheek on her fist, still sipping her second brandy. Passionate Omegas and, if they existed, passionate Betas were likely the worst of women to fall in love with—after all, Alex's own cousin Meredith had done what the Alpha had considered unthinkable and had fallen in love with a man who would never marry her. A widow, she had taken an Alpha as her lover and had considered him very much one of the best of her friends. Now that he was married, she had resigned herself to move on as best she could but in what life was this healthy? She frowned at nothing. Meredith was one of those passionate Omegas who could simply not function should she not have what she wished—to be held intimately by someone who could help her in her desperation. What sort of man would fall in love with her? What poor fool would consider an Omega so free with her affections? What man would allow himself a broken heart when she left him?

And who was to blame for this? Well, she frowned even harder. Meredith had been quite faithful and steady before Lord Turnwell had passed on. It was that damned lover she had taken, surely. He had whet her appetites for more and then he had left her desperate and wanting.

The very devil she had cursed strolled into Whites at that moment, shedding his greatcoat and his gloves as he came in. No other Alpha could have such a presence and surely she understood what Meredith had seen in him. He was stately and bold even in the smallest of his gestures with an imposing height and broad shoulders. Any Omega would have swooned over how impossibly large he was and the way his sharp golden eyes flashed with a distinctive mischief. He was immaculately dressed, as he always was, and he wandered his way to Marksdown and Griggsby, his hand quickly filled with a drink by a girl who had clearly been sent to him.

And what could Alex do about it at all anyway? He was a Duke. It wasn't as though she could become snappish at him. He didn't even know her—they had yet to be introduced. It seemed as though a thousand times she had sought him out in her head and told him what she thought of him and each and every time in her mind he had remained entirely unaffected by her. What could she say to him? That he had ruined her cousin? That he had taught her to be an unfaithful wife? That he had shown her such pleasures that she was now no more than a pleading wanton? Alex truly thought she hated him. She had heard of his past exploits in kissing debutantes and it was those that most men found abhorrent—but she felt more for the widows than for the innocent girls. The widows had been shown a life that was unsustainable, that was _unfaithful_.

“Miss Straffton,” came a voice off to her left and she jerked upward, suddenly noting that her scent must have been pungent with her internal fury. She shook her head and peered toward the man who would approach her in such a state to find a very curious-looking Lord Rainton who was holding his glass tight to his chest as though he thought it would protect him. “I hoped to disturb you from whatever murderous thoughts you might have been harboring. Is there something I can do to assuage you?”

She sighed, relaxing back into her chair again. “Pull up a seat, Baron. I've a dangerous set of thoughts and you might just be the man to wave them off. You've a way about you in that regard.”

He did as she suggested, taking to his gin and casting an inviting glance over her. “What could this be about, I wonder? You've not had such a serious face on you before. Has something happened?”

“No no...”

“Nothing? I suppose nobody else has found out about _la Contessa_ ,” he teased, seeking to lighten her heart. Rainton, of course, was the only one to know of Alex's secret. She preferred it that nobody knew of her father's legacy in her and his Italian noble title that she sought to keep tucked away. It wouldn't do for her to flaunt such a title—even to accept that she was her father's daughter was difficult for her. To be publicly announced as _La Contessa di Montralto_ would embarrass her to her toes and it was just as well that the only Englishman who knew was one who was adept at staying mum about such things. Rainton, she had found, was a decent keeper of secrets. Not only that but he seemed tickled pink to treat _la Contessa_ as an amusing alter ego.

“No,” she smiled, her heartwarming at his humor. “She is safe for now. It is only that every time I see the Duke, I am filled with the compulsion to punch him.”

“You wouldn't be alone in that. Perhaps you and Lord Halwill would have much to commiserate about...though,” Rainton thought, “I think perhaps they've managed to put their differences behind them...at least mostly. There are plenty of men whose wives were kissed in gardens who would adore holding the man down if you'd like to give him a bloody lip.”

She chuckled at his rakish grin. “Rainton, you are naughty. I thought he was your friend.”

“What is a friend but a man who will completely condone a bloody lip when one deserves it? What's he done to you, Straffton? Kissed you in a garden? Must have been a time ago, if it's to be that. He's not seen a widow or an innocent since his wedding night, so I've heard.”

Alex gulped at the rest of her brandy, setting it down upon the side table and again finding herself with a new glass nearly too quickly. If this was to continue, she would find herself blazing drunk before she knew it. “I do not know if you've known this but Lady Turnwell is my cousin.”

His eyes flashed with interest. “You don't say...”

“He broke her heart.”

“And this is why you wish to give him a good beating. Well, having married a widow, I suppose I cannot be the one to mention that our dearest Lady Turnwell likely knew quite well that Asterly wouldn't marry her...” He examined the clear liquid in his glass, not meeting her eyes when he spoke. “It is rather uncommon to do so. I even had to find myself married by a blacksmith...she could not have had any illusions.”

“She would not have found herself with such urgent needs should she not have been seduced by him,” she grumbled. This time, she felt Rainton's eyes upon her.

“Forgive me, Miss Straffton, but you're patently wrong on that account and please take that from a man who routinely beds his once-widowed husband. An Omega's _urgent needs_ are quite the same no matter the Alphas or Betas they've taken in. Whether it be one or one hundred, once they've a taste, there is a hunger. It is likely that the late Lord Turnwell had more to do with her Ladyship's taste than the Duke. Morgan was merely providing a favor.”

She straightened in her seat, uncomfortable now. “He tempted her toward unfaithfulness.”

He raised his brows. “You're at risk of offending me, Miss Straffton.”

“It's quite different with you, Baron,” she grumbled, upset with herself and with him. “You _married_ him.”

The Baron sighed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and sipping the rest of his drink. They sat this way for a small time until he was finished with his gin and then he cast another look over at her, seemingly resigned. “I cannot know what to do for you, Straffton. I can tell you that the only manner in which you can resolve this is to speak to him. He's a decent man, after all. He's faithful to his husband and he's a good father. Your cousin is a fine woman and they'd a very sweet friendship for a time. It has appeared to me that she's moved on quite finely. Perhaps you should as well.”

“I've yet to be introduced.”

“Then allow me.” He stood and waited for her to follow suit, leading her to where Asterly was leaning casually against the back of one of the tall wingbacked chairs to watch Mr. Penberth calculate his shot at the billiard table. With an amount of casualty that had Alex nearly floored, he motioned over his shoulder to her. “Duke, this is Miss Straffton. She's of the mind that you might look better with a split lip.”

Her heart squeezed in her chest and she stared at Rainton with a frozen grimace. This man was _huge._ He could likely lift her by her throat and toss her clear through a window and the Baron had the audacity to introduce her like _this?_ She cleared her throat when she gazed up at the man who had straightened fully and regarded her with an amused stare. “Uh...um...what the Baron means to say is...” she fumbled, unable to continue, her hands making movements to convey her loss.

Asterly must have been a supremely patient man. “Good evening, Miss Straffton. I suppose I must have wronged you though I can't see how. I don't recall having besmirched your honor though whether or not I recall it does not seem to have much bearing on whether or not it was to have happened.” He chuckled at himself and Penberth gave him a distinctly unamused little glance.

She glanced about at the men around them who seemed all to have at least an ear toward them and she lowered her tone. “Perhaps a word, your Grace...outside?”

His brows popped upward. “Is there to be a row? I've not drunk enough for such an event. You'll have to wait until I've imbibed enough not to care when my mate sees the state of me on the morrow.”

“No...” she replied softly. “Despite what the Baron may have said, I've no wish to find myself in any way maimed by you. A gentlemanly word...if you please.” Though she'd finished two and a half glasses of brandy already, she found herself feeling distinctly sober as the Alpha followed her to the doors. They slipped outside, forgoing their coats. The air was warmer than usual though still chilly and she shivered a bit and took another gulp from her glass, turning about to face him in the greenish glow of the gas lamp. “My cousin...”

“Lady Turnwell,” he mused. “She told me you were related.” His glinting golden eyes were warm. “Your mother's side, I seem to recall.”

“Yes...” She nibbled at her bottom lip. “I don't like you, your Grace. You've made her into a joke.”

“She is a formidable Omega. She knows what she wants.”

“And you've married and taken it from her.”

He sniffed. “Have you had any kind of close conversation with your cousin lately? She's a woman who knows exactly what she wants and she's kept no secrets from me. Perhaps you might become closer to her. Did you know she writes me?”

Alex's grip was tighter around her glass. “What?”

“She writes me. If you'd like to see her letters, I will share them. They're not intimate. In fact, she bids me to read them with Bartholomew as she does find herself quite fond of him.”

She cleared her throat. “I think I've determined what I dislike most about you, your Grace.”

He smiled at her, clearly pleased with himself. “What have you decided upon?”

“That you've no shame. And that you're clearly able to snatch up whatever you wish with seemingly no consequence.” She wasn't certain what to think. All of this information was muddling about in her head and though she felt nearly sober in the cold air and under the scrutiny of this Alpha, it was difficult to order her thoughts properly. She didn't want to consider that Meredith was in any way to blame for her own fall from grace but this Alpha left her feeling as though she was every bit a player in the game as he was. That some women had such agency to become agents of their own unfaithfulness was baffling and startling—it was much easier to blame the Alphas.

Asterly peered up at the cloud-covered sky and that the place where those clouds became a little lighter for the moon behind them. “Hmm. You think I didn't work for any of it? Perhaps I should tell you how I could have had my husband stolen from me by a Beta. Wicked, those Betas.” He cast her a sly smile. “What are you looking for, Miss Straffton? Are you looking for me to explain myself? I cannot. Are you looking for the secret of finding love? Or are you looking for the secret of finding a _lover?_ ”

Her blood burned. “I would _never._ ”

“Oh?” He seemed mildly shocked at her enmity. “And here I thought you jealous. I must have misread you.”

“You must have,” she spat. “I could no more be jealous of you than of a common toad.” Here she was, she thought to herself, becoming snappish with him. She was drunk enough, she supposed. She couldn't feel her lips.

He laughed, his scent calm and even happy. “You're going to find exactly what you're looking for, Alpha. I only hope that you've enough sense to recognize it when you do.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” she grumbled back, her churlish and burning scent picked up by the light breeze and carried away down the street.

“Only that whatever it is that you seek will find you. Love, perhaps.”

“I value only one thing in a mate,” she replied. “Faithfulness.”

“Hmm...just the one? I do not think I could count upon my fingers and my toes the things I value in his Grace. Though most of those I will admit I discovered after having met him. No doubt the same will occur to you. When you find them...you will uncover a wealth of things you did not know—mostly about yourself.” He smiled a wide close-mouthed smile that unsettled her to her deeply. Could he be right? Would such a thing disarm her?

_Will I become my father? Unable to find all I need in one mate? Will I face the curse of dissatisfaction? Is it in my blood already, teeming and unseen?_

“You cannot know my heart,” she told him distractedly, upset that her brandy was gone and there were no serving girls outside to blind her with drink.

“Forgive me, Alpha,” he snickered, “but it seems as though you cannot know it yourself.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good thing Asterly doesn't allow his bridge to be burned. Methinks Alex will need him later.


	3. Chapter 3

A breeze was blowing in through the opened windows and the doors leading out to the garden. As the first grand ball of the season, this would be the perfect place for any who were plotting a decent plot for romance to go about doing it. The candles in the sconces and the chandeliers were glimmering over glasses and gilt, glinting in the eyes of the fresh-faced debutantes as they scuttled over the dancefloor after their arrival to form an as-yet loose cluster of Omegas which would no-doubt tighten up once they'd gotten enough in their ranks and gained their bearings.

Florence, of course, was rather disturbed by such behavior, preferring to keep to the Betas who often formed their own sort of ranks along the edges of parties. She liked to stay with Olivia and the other Beta debutantes who she casually offered up for dances when the stray Alphas came too near. Of course, the Betas did enjoy having her about as it often welcomed Alpha lords to meander closer to them and perhaps get to know the girls who were more often looked over. Omegas were usually an unwelcome distraction among their ranks but Florence was the exception, having been a staple at Lady Westbrooke's Beta parties since she had first made her debut in London.

The lively Beta girls who she had met last season were keen to seek her out and give out mutual curtsies, some of them even taking her hand to give her soft kisses over her fingers—a gesture that was rife with just a smidgen of sauciness that Florence most certainly enjoyed even if it made Olivia a tad bit peevish at their forwardness. The newer girls, the ones who had just come out, were wary of her and kept from her even after they were introduced. She couldn't rightly blame them. After all, she was the competition.

Olivia was standing near the banister of the second level which overlooked the ballroom, her auburn hair drawn away from her face and pulled up in a complex design threaded through with pearls which shined in their muted way from the darkness of her locks. Her gown was a rich deep blue and Florence could barely stand how low it was cut over her bosom, revealing her slender collarbones and her soft shoulders. She was easily picked out if even only from her height which was impressive though not quite as so as her older sisters. That she was easily seen was very much a boon for Florence as she now made her way through the gathering crowd.

Their task was not a simple one. This season they would be looking for an Alpha who might take kindly to a rather  _ close _ relationship between the two of them. Though it seemed simple enough, the pair had found their list of potential suitors to be quite slim indeed. Mostly, she conceded, because the two of them were far too picky. If one was going to be spending the rest of one's life with someone and potentially having his pups, then one simply must find a man worth the trouble. He must be easy on the eyes, of course, though that was one aspect that they could not find common ground upon. Olivia enjoyed Alphas with blonde hair and light-colored eyes while Florence quite preferred gentlemen with darker attributes.

The latter was the sort of gentleman Florence decided to pursue first and it was the  _ most _ titled of them that she sought out in the beginning. She supposed it would be prudent to search out the most well-endowed peer (in the terms of his title and his wealth) before considering those of a less substantial nature. She perused the dancefloor until she came to the Marquess of Avindale whose dark, enigmatic gaze seemed so intent upon the cluster of Omegas that he didn't even see her approach.

“They will be a much rowdier bunch when there are more of them. I suppose if you're intending to dance with as many as possible, you might begin right now when they are least protected.” She pulled out her fan and began to flutter it toward her throat, standing next to him and staring over at the loosely-formed cluster as though she were contemplating them herself.

Avindale looked down at her and she could feel his eyes sizing her up. “I'm sorry,” his low, soothing voice replied, tingling over her flesh in the way only Alpha voices could. “Do I know you? Have we been introduced?”

“Oh, how impolite of me...I mistook you for someone else. It is only that you are all so tall, I hardly can stand to look up at you for overly long. Please excuse me, Alpha, I had not meant to.” She paused for only half a moment, waiting for him to stop her.

Predictably, he did.

“Wait, little one. When one is a Marquess, one does not have to wait to be introduced. So should it come from my end, I should happily come to know you. I am Avindale.”

She pretended to be tentative when she gave him her fingers and watched him kiss the backs of them. “I am Florence Stone.”

“Miss Stone,” he replied warmly, “I believe I've heard of you. You sing like a nightingale, if I recall correctly. The most blessed of the songbirds.” He smiled disarmingly and Florence felt her heart beat hard.

“You are too kind.” Perhaps he  _ was _ too kind. She made a mental note not to allow him to get her too close to the french doors. With a small glance, she determined that Olivia was still watching her, this time from a different place on the banister. “I daresay my advice still stands. You should dance with them now if you wish to get through as many as possible.”

He was eying her. “Perhaps I should dance with you. I have read that you take most of your time among the Betas...but you do not dance with those pitiful gentlemen...”

“Pitiful?” she asked, taking a moment to catch his dark eyes. “You cannot think so.”

“Betas? A mystery to me. I cannot imagine how they are to go through life being so...unremarkable.”

“Unremarkable you say?” she asked, privately horrified at the thought that anyone should think a Beta—especially  _ her _ Beta—was  _ unremarkable _ . “Should I dare ask what it is that would make a man remarkable? Do you know that Betas are without compare when it comes to sums?”

“Sums? Is that what impresses you, Miss Stone?” His brows were arched high and there was amusement in his eyes. His mouth was playing at a smile but Florence could feel no pleasure in the handsomeness of it. “What other fantastic qualities does a Beta man boast that could draw you away from the strength and prowess of a finely crafted Alpha?”

“You tease me, my Lord.”

“Only because you are far too beautiful to consider a Beta an acceptable lover. You are a star that shines bright above all these other girls.  _ You _ are remarkable, Miss Stone.”

She frowned at him. “I think all the girls are remarkable in their own right...and all the men, I suppose.”

“You cannot, surely. Even the most beautiful of the Beta girls stand alone and nervous along the sides of any party. It would take a truly desperate Alpha to find himself at the feet of say...an Idlewind.”

She wished she had a drink so that she might “accidentally” spill it all over his fancy brocade waistcoat. Her lips thinned. “I think the Idlewinds are marvelous.”

“Yes,  _ marvelous _ ,” he joked. “Now...should you care for that dance? They are playing a waltz.”

“No thank you, I believe I'd rather die.” With that, she made her way to the large bowl of punch without even turning to see how poorly her statement had gone with him. No doubt he was tripping over himself wondering what in the world he had said which had so offended her and, being an Alpha, was probably unable to determine any fault at all. She huffed over what a mess that had been until she was handed a glass of punch by a rather tall and kind-looking Alpha with clear blue eyes and a shock of red hair.

“Oh...thank you...”

He smiled a small closed-mouth smile. “Stratnaugh. You do not have to tell me your name for I already know it. You are the brilliant Miss Stone.”

“Brilliant?” Obviously having been shielded among the Betas had done her reputation some good. She was just as untouchable as those who stood among the cluster but was seen as removed from them in some positive fashion. “I should hardly think that a man who cannot know my mind should think me brilliant.”

“Forgive me,” he replied, clearing his throat a little in his nervousness. “It is only that you are so far removed from what is normally considered very Omega and yet you are the pinnacle of the species.”

“That is to say that you think I'm lovely to look at.”

“W-Well...yes.”

Avindale had still left a bit of a sour taste in her mouth so she peered down into her punch and hoped that she might not have to waste it on this poor soul. “And your thoughts of the Betas?”

“What?”

“The Betas. Are they lovely to look at?”

He immediately regarded them thoughtfully, his fingers together and tapping a bit as he considered them. “I had not fully looked at them until just now. You see...I have not been to town much and I have been compelled now by my father to find a mate...I daresay a Beta girl could do just as well.”

“You do not find them alluring at all?”

He gazed down at her again. “Compared to an Omega? I cannot see how they could possibly compare. They are not as small and lithe...there is something to be said about  _ smallness _ that is an attribute of merit in an Alpha's eye. The smaller an Omega, the more attractive she is.”

Florence inwardly groaned. “So you could not love an Omega who was, say, as tall as you are?”

He burst out into a handsome chuckle though Florence could again, take no pleasure in it. “I find the idea novel but nevertheless unrealistic. You do not speak of yourself, you must have someone in mind. I say, Miss Stone, please do not bring another woman into this—I speak with you as one man, please speak with me as one woman.”

She pulled her mouth off to one side in distaste and sipped her punch, pulling herself away from him so that she might scan the available Alphas once again. Unfortunately, with each Alpha, she found new reasons to spill punch upon them, their ideas about the Beta girls—to say nothing of what they thought of the men—were nothing short of disturbing. Florence was left feeling quite unsuccessful in her venture, having gone through most of the available pool very quickly and having danced with none of them at all. It was not so difficult to find fault in them and by the time she was standing again beside Olivia, there was a mutual scent of disappointment wafting between the two of them.

Still, among the Beta's mildness, there was a hearty determination. Her voice was low and soft. “Do not fret, Omega. There are many more parties and many more Alpha gentlemen. Perhaps there are some who are of a particular stock. Perhaps we have been going about this in a fashion that is too haphazard...”

“What do you mean? I have been quite systematic in my approach.” She peered over the thickening crowd, searching for single Alpha gentlemen that had only just arrived.

“I mean that perhaps we should be asking for aide.”

“Heavens, what could you mean?”

Olivia brushed a surreptitious touch of her fingers over Florence's arm to calm her. “Do not become riled. No one will know of us. But perhaps we should be asking my sister if she should know of any Alpha who might be suitable for...well...our purposes.”

“And what do you suppose you might tell her is our purpose?”

Olivia's brows knitted just slightly as she pondered. “I will think of something.”

Almost as if by magic, a voice similar to Olivia's sounded from just beside them, subtle in its power and originating from Olivia's chaperone for the season—Hannah. “You will think of something? Oh dear, should I desire to know what sort of plot you two are conspiring to commit?” She was taller than Olivia by a mere few inches though it seemed as though she towered with elegance and grace even as her tummy was rounded with her second pup. “Should you think me a fine co-conspirator, you should know that I cannot ruin my own reputation...only yours.”

Olivia smiled at her sister with an affection that almost put a note of jealousy in Florence's heart. To have been so close with Olivia as her sisters! To be peered at with such unconditional tenderness! “Hannah you are too kind...though this is the sort of thing for which you would be quite decent.”

“Matchmaking? I am but a novice, if you'll recall.”

“Well sharpen your claws, sister, for I am looking for a mate.”

Hannah's brows faltered for a moment and she looked between them in a glance that was odd to say the least. “Oh?” She seemed to collect herself suddenly and let her mouth expand into a smile. “Oh...well I suppose that  _ is _ what we are in London to do, after all, isn't it?”

“Indeed,” the younger Beta replied. “We—I...am looking for an Alpha who might not be so averse to the idea of a Beta for a wife.”

Hannah nodded resolutely. “They must be an Alpha...a noble goal, I suppose. Although that is, perhaps, the side of me that was quite tickled at having bagged one myself.” Her soft scent fluffed at the memory of her unexpected victory in having caught herself a very fine specimen of Alpha indeed. Miles Swophill was a very  _ dear _ Alpha and one that Florence knew Olivia would have been keen to snatch up should he have been available this season. Hannah took a moment, her eyes flitting over the crowd before they seemed to lose focus for a moment as she searched her memories. “Hmm...”

“Hmm?” Florence asked, taking another sip of her punch and wishing there was something stronger in it.

Olivia was practically leaning forward waiting for her sister's response and Florence even found herself doing the same. “Well, Hannah?”

“There is one Alpha...but perhaps it wouldn't suit...”

“There are plenty who wouldn't suit, but one cannot know until one tries,” Florence provided amiably.

Hannah was stroking her chin as if an invisible beard should help her to think. “There is a very comely Alpha I danced with...the cousin of Lady Turnwell.”

Olivia passed Florence a meaningful glance.

“Straffton. That's her name. She was quite enamored of a Beta girl who seemed rather ambivalent toward her. Or perhaps 'ambivalent' is too generous a word. The dear Beta seemed almost to pretend that the poor woman didn't exist at all. I know woman Alphas are not at all in fashion but she  _ is _ an Alpha, after all. And if that is your only requirement, then she could do quite well for you.” With that, Hannah put her hands on her hips. “If you'd like, I can host a party and you might try to catch her eye.”

Olivia nodded. “That would be well done of you, Hannah. I would very much appreciate it. Might as well get down to business this season.”

“Right...” Hannah appeared thoughtful for a moment before she nodded quickly. “Would you like there to be any other Alphas there? Any you've your eye on, Miss Stone?”

Caught out rather suddenly, Florence smiled. “Oh dear, no...I can't think of any. Perhaps you might invite Mr. Porter?”

“Mr. Porter?” Hannah asked incredulously. “For the life of me, I wouldn't know why you would ever fancy Mr. Porter...though that is neither here nor there since he has found a wife in the indomitable Lady Sophia Nolan.”

Florence stared at her blankly. “Who is that?”

She sighed. “Nevermind, dear. I will find you a decent Beta should that be what you desire. But I warn the both of you not to hang all your hopes upon me.”

Olivia touched her sister's arm. “Oh we would never think to become a burden, Hannah. Should you not be too burdened to host a party when you would also chaperone me?”

“I will have Miles keep an eye out for you as well, though he cannot chase you into the garden so I suggest you train yourself to be the very pinnacle of propriety. Not that I have to worry about you as much as I might Chastity. She seems to become more foolhardy by the day. Quite eager to have you married so that she might catch a libertine.” She chatted almost to herself as she excused herself to fetch some punch for her aforementioned Alpha husband, Miles, and headed off in that direction.

With Hannah's influence, it was possible that it would take no more than a season to determine if there were any decent Alphas or even Betas who might become interested in the both of them as a set. Of course, all this talk about Alphas who might be interested in Betas had Florence feeling a bit covetous. All she wished for was to hide away with her lovely mate and kiss her madly in the name of establishing dominance. Of all the Alphas in the place, Florence had no doubt that they could not possibly stand up to her own power.

“Well,” Olivia sighed. “That went splendidly. If I speak it, it is true: we are  _ going _ to somehow get through this without completely ruining ourselves.”

“You underestimate the power of the two of us together,” Florence replied haughtily. “We are  _ exceptionally intelligent. _ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am...inebriated. :3 (Accidentally posted at 12:01 on a Saturday morning. I apologize.)


	4. Chapter 4

  Alex couldn't help but admit to herself that she was becoming quite bored of the Season this year. She had found that with the introduction of Lady Netherfield prior to her own arrival, the ton had been primed for a woman who was formidable like herself—but was decidedly unsure what to do with an Alpha woman who had no title of which to take advantage. Lady Netherfield had not been particularly popular merely due to the fact that Alphas of their persuasion were simply not _in fashion._ Of course, when were they ever? It was a crime, Alex thought to herself, that a woman with her background and her status should ever be taken less seriously than a man but it seemed she could not escape the fate of her own born gender. This, in turn, made vying for the attentions of the sweet little Omegas something of a chore.

If only that darling Beta girl she had admired had not gone and married some boring Beta gentleman, she could perhaps have finally gathered the courage to fully pursue her. Unfortunately, the girl hadn't even considered Alex an option, treating more like an elder sister than a potential mate. It had been obvious nearly from the moment the Alpha had spoken to her; she had a notion of what an Alpha would mean to her...and it was not what Alex had in mind.

One drawing room seemed very much like the rest of them and they seemed to fall past her the way that the days did. She was becoming accustomed to appreciating the décor more than the company and was keen to discover the patterns of the damask and the color combinations utilized by each family she visited. It was difficult to remember the names of all the uninterested young ladies but it was easy to remember the inlay of gilt in the chairs of Lady Griggsby's populated drawing room. She found that she was getting fairly accustomed to guessing at the state of affairs mainly by the amount of fading on the curtains and in some extreme cases, the carpeting. Every so often she was able to notice a hint of fraying along the edges of the upholstery that gave away the dire straits of the hosts, but Alex was far too ambivalent to care for what that might mean for her chances. It was more likely, in all actuality, that it was the family of the _Alphas_ who were in trouble financially. They would need a good girl with a rich family to bring them out of the deep waters of debt and Alex was in no way suitable for that endeavor.

She was just inspecting the top of one of the wing-backed chairs in yet another parlor when she was struck by a sudden and whispered conversation occurring just next to her between two young Alpha lads who were standing shoulder to shoulder nearby to her. Their voices were down but they had neglected to make sure that Alex was a suitable distance from them before speaking and so every word floated toward her with perfect clarity.

“She's got a voice like that of a nightingale and hair the color of light, rich honey. God, man. I could get lost in her eyes.”

The second gentleman scoffed. “You sound in love with her already. She cannot be that beautiful.”

“She is. She is all that and more. Florence Stone, my darling and my light...if she would only answer my letters...we could be married by next Season.”

“You've been sending her letters? Has she not invited you to call upon her?”

“I have sent her a note with every bouquet...but I have been told that she has spent more time with her friend than at her uncle's house in town and god forbid I send flowers to the home of her friend...”

“Why is that?”

He sniffed as though the answer should have been obvious. “A pretty girl but not one I should care to send flowers to. A family of headstrong Betas, you see.”

“How unusual.”

His voice took on that wistful tone yet again and he sighed. “Oh but Miss Stone is so terribly unusual...and only in the most delicious of ways. Wait until you catch a whiff of this girl, Stalward. She'll turn your world right on its head.”

Stalward raised his glass and took a sip, his expression quite incredulous. “Oh I doubt I'll be as convinced...I've not seen a girl yet can tempt me.”

Alex peered toward the door, expecting that with this statement would come the inevitable and apt entrance of a girl just beautiful enough to tempt the steadfast Stalward—but no girl was forthcoming and so Alex took it upon herself to wander to the window and peer out of it into the unseasonably warm evening darkness cut only by the torches that had been placed to light the way for the carriage drivers arriving to the dinner. She was there for a small time before their hostess came to her, sidling next to her elbow in a subtle cloud of Omega fragrance.

“A drink for you, Miss Straffton?”

“Yes, thank you.” She took the brandy she was offered and turned slightly to regard the woman who stood beside her. She was tall for an Omega and older than Alex by a score at least. Lady Griggsby, it seemed, was a formidable widow and one who did not suffer fools lightly.

“It was good of you to come again. You were such a light in my parlor when you visited before.”

“Kind of you to say, my Lady. It is always a pleasure to find myself in the drawing rooms of distinguished ladies.”

“ _Distinguished_ makes me sound like an old woman.”

She smiled, flashing her teeth and hoping it was as charming as she thought it was. “Forgive me, it was not my intent.”

“You know my son, of course.”

She had been acquainted with Lord Griggsby for only the beginning of this season and found him to be a rather shy Alpha, not prone to speaking with conviction. He was often in the background of any crowd and seemed to Alex to be a rather odd man if only for his uncharacteristic quietude. It was nearly unnatural for an Alpha and yet it fit him well in his relative plainness. “Yes, a little,” she replied, somewhat pensively.

“He's a good boy. Merely needs a little prodding toward a decent wife. I'm told there are plenty of boys with such temperaments.”

“Bachelorhood is sometimes difficult to relinquish, I've heard.” A string of nervousness began to wind around her mind.

“I had hoped that he would be tempted by the little ones...so far none have caught his eye. Forgive me, Miss Straffton, but sometimes it takes an Alpha to spur another Alpha on.”

Her heart suddenly skipped a beat. “My Lady, I'm afraid I've misunderstood you.”

Her cheeks grew pink for a moment as she stared up at Alex, shocked. “Oh? _Oh!_ Oh no. Oh no, no. Oh dear, that is not what I meant at all...what I mean to say is that perhaps he requires some prodding through _jealousy_. Perhaps you might...make your attentions known to some of the girls and...and he might be incited to act. Y-You see, I got the idea from Hannah Idlewind. As a Beta woman, she has this unique talent to spur Omegas into movement by challenging their notions of what is right and natural—perhaps you might do the same to my son.”

Alex's brows tilted inward and furrowed just slightly. “You believe your son might consider me an upstart? That I might not be suitable for an Omega because I'm...because I'm a woman? Or is this my lack of title?” She was beginning to feel a bit miffed but even as she opened her mouth to say more to this woman who was clearly beginning to realize her error and audacity in her approach, she was distracted by a scent that was as sweet as it was captivating. She lost her words in her throat as her eyes came to the entrance to the parlor and the housekeeper announced her as Miss Florence Stone.

A murmur seemed to come through the crowd and the two Alphas who had spoken in hushed tones were staring at the girl as though she were the embodiment of Venus herself. Well, at least the one of them was. Stalward didn't seem overly impressed, though he did look at her with appreciation at least. She was beautiful, Alex thought. A small woman, typical size for an Omega and fair in complexion. Her hair was a honey blonde and appeared as though if it were not held by her coiffure, it might float around her shoulders as though suspended in some mystical water. A fairy, Alex thought at the first, and was in no way surprised that a man might spend much of his inheritance on flowers for this beautiful creature.

“Miss Stone,” Lady Griggsby greeted, probably happy to relieve herself of Alex's company and her increasingly peeved scent. “How lovely of you to join us tonight. You look so lovely tonight, as always of course. Come, come, and L-Lord Rainton, h-how are you?” She gave a deferential curtsy even as she became a small bit hung up on Miss Stone's chaperone's title, the man obviously comfortable and unmoved.

“I am well,” the Omega Rainton replied softly, guiding his charge by her elbow further into the room until they were positioned well enough to wait for supper to be served. He stood by the edge of the settee that Miss Stone sat upon looking regal enough and cautiously working not to look too closely at any of the Alphas who sought her eyes.

Alex stared at the little Lord Rainton, this having been the first time she had ever encountered him, recalling the Alpha Lord's words to her. _You're at risk of offending me, Miss Straffton._ Had this little one been tempted out of faithfulness? Was his marriage cobbled together or was it a result of two hearts desperately in love? Knowing Rainton, it was the latter. Still, Alex moved her eyes to the carpet and stayed put until dinner was announced, keeping her glass of brandy close.

In a surprising twist, she was placed upon Miss Stone's right with Lord Griggsby to the girl's left, obviously posed to fight for her attentions with the poor man who seemed in all ways entirely disinterested in the dulcet little woman between them. Uncertain, Alex made certain to glance at the girl, finding her scent to be open and her wide, inquisitive eyes scanning the table before they came up to meet her own.

Without drawing her gaze away, Miss Stone greeted her. “Good evening, Alpha. I daresay, you've a lovely scent. I usually do not care to be placed between two Alphas for I can scarce hold down my supper. But yours and Lord Griggsby's are not so terrible at all.”

She smiled, amused. “How frank you are, Miss Stone.”

“I find that it is much easier on most occasions to be forthright.” She nodded to herself. “You must be Miss Straffton.”

“You've heard of me.”

“Simon has spoken of you...and Hannah. I thought I might not see you until you came to Lord Whelton's townhouse. I believe Lady Whelton has sent you an invitation.”

Alex sighed through her nose. She had received the invitation but had not decided whether or not she would go. “I will have to take another look. I suppose things do sometimes happen out of the order in which we think they ought to go. Are you disappointed to have met me now instead?”

Her mouth tilted up at the edge and there was a strange look about her that tugged at Alex's mind. As though despite her relatively innocent appearance, she was hiding something terribly naughty. “Oh no. I do like finding new Alphas who have the presence of mind about me to keep themselves from falling into the common traps of impropriety.”

Alex blinked. “Are there so many that seek to lead you astray?”

Miss Stone passed her a sardonic glance as the first course was brought out to them. “I cannot tell you the amount of times I have had to duck under a gentleman's arm to keep him from making a fool of himself. Take Mr. Relmsberg over there for example.”

Alex flicked her gaze to the Alpha who had waxed poetic about her in the parlor, unsurprised that he should be the one to rise in such a conversation. “He has been inappropriate with you?”

“He has grazed the border of impropriety,” Stone explained. “Of course, there is always a type of Alpha who will do such a thing...and even a type of Beta though those are far more rare. It is easy to tell most of them. Others hide it better.”

She regarded the girl with a growing sense of appreciation as she spoke. “I am in awe of your candidness, Miss.”

“Forgive me, it is a habit of mine. I am far too outspoken for an Omega I am told.”

“Who says such? I should box their ears. Please, explain to me how you come to know immediately that an Alpha is such a person who would treat you unkindly.”

Miss Stone sipped at her claret. “It is something in his eyes, I think. I say 'his' only due to that gender's predilection for impropriety.”

“Is this why you confess the sins of others to me? Because I am a woman?”

She smiled, her cheeks and the bridge of her nose forming an attractive flush. “Oh dear...when you state it thusly, I must seem such a brute.”

Alex was smiling, a warmth spreading in her heart. This Omega was more than beauty certainly. She was something else entirely and Alex couldn't tell just what. That she was outspoken against impropriety...that she had an opinion that was clear and was not afraid to speak it. It left the Alpha wondering at her other opinions of Alphas and of men. Would this girl somehow not hold her gender against her? Could she truly look past that Alex was a woman and consider her?

_How novel...that the most attractive of Omegas should be least in favor of the gentlemen who covet her._

“May I be bold, Miss Stone?”

“I believe I've already given leave for such talk with my own speech,” she chuckled, sipping more of her claret.

“This is your second season, correct? How is it that a beautiful girl like yourself does not snatch up a suitable mate within the first? I cannot find fault in you...there must be reason.” She was treading upon damp and cracking ice, she supposed.

Stone, for her part, transformed her smile into a grin. “I am a stubborn woman, I suppose. I tell my uncle to dispose of the notes on the flowers I am sent. The scent of desperation upon the parchments ruins their fragrance.”

Alex stared at her, marveling at her as though she were a treasure to be found in the depths of an Egyptian tomb. “And should I send you a bouquet, Miss Stone? Should you tell him to discard my note?”

“Will you send one?”

“Perhaps not. Any flowers I should send to you, I will expect you to know who has sent them without need for a missive.”

Stone's light eyes flashed. “You _are_ bold, Miss Straffton. An Alpha no doubt.” Her scent was fluffed and intrigued with clear interest. “I will take care then not to worry myself with what you might send to me. I shall know it when I see it.”

Alex felt a tingle through her body and couldn't help the low chuckle that escaped her. She had not felt so stimulated by an Omega for such a long time and was not usually suffered by them. One look to Lady Griggsby and she was reminded that the woman had thought her son would have intervened by now but the man was very studiously chatting with a nearby Beta about some boring topic or another, having not even given Miss Stone a second glance. Another chuckle escaped her and roused her conversational partner.

“Do I amuse you, Miss Straffton?”

“Very much so. I am unused to Omegas having anything to do with me. It is odd to me that I should find you so receptive to me.”

She frowned. “Why would you say that?”

“It is only that you are so beautiful. One would think you would find yourself a mate equally so.”

Stone gave a ladylike snort and put her fingers to her mouth as she peered over at Alex incredulously. “Do you not have faith in your own beauty, Miss Straffton? Have you not seen yourself in a glass?”

She certainly had. She had seen every bit of her mother in her—and her father. “My shoulders are too wide and my skin too dark.”

“You are an Alpha. You cannot judge yourself as though you are meant to be looked upon by another of your own sex. Forget what you knew of being a woman—bloom as you are meant to bloom. A foxglove and a daisy do not compare to each other, do they?”

“No...they do not.”

“Of course not. My apparent frankness will save you some time now, Alpha. You are quite attractive. Tell me...what is your opinion of Beta girls? Do you find them to be just as worthy of Alphas as Omegas?”

“Worthy?” she asked blankly, blinking a little. “A girl is worthy of any Alpha she should choose—now, Alphas, on the other hand, can hardly find themselves with any worth at all.”

Stone blinked in apparent surprise at her response and then gave out a small giggle. “How strange of you...and unforgiving. I do believe I like you, Miss Straffton. I think I like you very much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Florence: **Target Acquired. Initiating Seduction Sequence.**


	5. Chapter 5

Olivia was concentrating heavily on her needlework when Florence breezed into the parlor as though she floated with wings upon her slippers. The needlework was near forgotten when she looked up and gazed adoringly at the girl who turned to face her with the most beautiful and transcendent smile on her face. She had not been so happy in days, Olivia thought, and something wonderful must have happened to her. Naturally, she set her work down on the settee beside her and stood, her eyes expectant as the girl near trembled with whatever it was—her lip between her teeth.

“Well?” Olivia asked, “Do not keep me waiting, Omega. What is it? You are nearly never without words, you cannot leave me in such suspense.”

“An Alpha, my darling,” she blurted happily. “The very one Hannah spoke of. I met her tonight and she was lovely. I cannot wait for you to meet her at your sister's party...you will no doubt find her just as lovely as I did.” She touched Olivia's cheek and brought her down for a gentle kiss upon her lips. Olivia reveled in her, taking her by the waist and deepening their connection with her tongue, pleading with her for entry until she was fully taken. It was not so unusual to be so enamored, was it? That Florence was excited about something was enough for Olivia's love to bubble over like this.

She spoke against the girl's lips. “Tell me about her.”

“She is a gentlewoman...with a sun-kissed face and kind eyes. She thinks that all women are worthy of any Alpha they could wish...and that Alphas hardly ever are.” She giggled. “A strange Alpha...but a good one. I think I wish to have her, Beta. I think I wish to see her open you before me and tease you and rut you until you're dripping with her.”

Olivia gasped and smiled, staring at a still-giggling Florence with false shock. “How could you speak of such lewd things in my parlor? Have you no shame, Omega?”

“Shame?” she asked, delighted. She dropped her flowing shawl to the floor and took a few steps from Olivia, reaching behind herself and untying the ribbon that laced the back of her bodice. “Omegas who have shame with their mate are those who are unhappy in their marriages.”

“How opinionated you are.”

“Is that not how I should be?” she asked, loosening her bodice before pulling it away from her and dropping the straps of her chemise so that her breasts were revealed to the warm firelight. Soon, she was completely nude, having stripped herself entirely before Olivia's lustful gaze, her body perfect in its proportions and without a single blemish.

“Perhaps,” Olivia told her, “I should put that mouth to better use.”

“Mm...I would put my mouth to you while you were opened by her, Beta. I would make her hold you down while I ravaged you.”

“How can such a pretty little nymph say such lewd things?”

“You have seen me do far worse. I'm going to bring this Alpha to her knees...she won't know what's happened until she's knot-deep in one of us. I, for one, am rather excited to see how much pleasure one can derive from an Alpha's _appendage._ Knowing how well we get on without one, I can't imagine how much fun we might have playing with one together...” Florence came to her, reaching around her in all her naked glory to unfasten the buttons of her gown.

Olivia put her hands to Florence's waist, holding her and sliding her fingers over the sensitive parts of her belly before she dipped one hand's fingers down to brush into the tuft of hair between her thighs which was already dripping with moisture. “Dearest, Florence, did you touch yourself in the coach on the way home?”

She laughed, her head tossing back. “My Oma was with me, of course not! When I rushed to see you, I was overcome by thoughts of ravishing you...I swear to you, it takes only seconds for me to find myself quite damp indeed.”

“So needy,” Olivia told her, being divested of her clothes rather neatly and moving them with her foot so that the space upon the floor was free. “Dance with me, Florence...”

“What?” she asked, her eyes on Olivia's breasts and the backs of her fingers trailing over her nipples. “There is no music.”

“Two lovers need no music. Dance with me. Like this. Nude. It would make a lovely painting, would it not?”

“A painting of us? Like this? Gracious, Olivia, no man could survive gazing upon it. Every ounce of their sense would leave them and they might drop dead right where they stood.” She moved her clothes out of the way and let Olivia place their hands, guiding her and leading her as they waltzed together without music in the middle of the parlor, avoiding the settee and the chairs as they went. Eventually, they closed the distance between them and Olivia found Florence pressed up against her, her dark blonde hair tickling her collarbone as the girl put her head against her shoulder and sighed into her throat.

“I love you, Florence Stone.”

“Mmm, I love you, Olivia. I will love you through everything.”

“No Alpha will steal you away from me?”

“Never. There can be no Alpha who would capture my eyes away from your radiance. You are my Beta and my mate.” She paused her movements, keeping Olivia from dancing with her further. “I will capture us this Alpha...but she must be absolutely smitten with me. Else she might leave us should she discover the plot. She must be so in love with me that she cannot possibly think to leave when we reveal ourselves to her for what we really are...she must accept you, Olivia. You will not become jealous, will you?”

“Of course not,” she lied. She knew she would become a little jealous at least.

“You cannot hide your scent from me, you evil girl,” Florence smiled. “Whenever you are jealous, you must tell me so that I might lay you down among the pillows and make you realize that no one could love you more than I.”

Olivia lifted the girl in her arms and laid her down upon the settee, kneeling over her and kissing her silly. She was much too perfect. How they had ever become lovers, she surely could not understand—how could a woman so perfect be in love with a drab and dull Beta like herself? A slice of doubt came into her heart. How could they ever find an Alpha who would not turn tail and run the moment they discovered that they would have to share their mate with a boring Beta? Of course, she was meant to flirt with the charming Miss Straffton herself...but could she bring herself to compete against her own lover? Could she even consider herself worthy of an Alpha who was on par with a woman like Florence Stone?

She nibbled at Florence's neck, pausing when the Omega stopped her with a fist in her hair.

“No, Olivia...”

“No?”

“I want to give _you_ pleasure tonight.”

She chuckled to herself, her face hot. “A-Alright, I suppose.” With only a small amount of trepidation, she switched places with Florence, laying back upon the small pillow that adorned the settee so that she might watch.

“Should you like my mouth, my love? Or perhaps...”

“I ache for your hand, dearest...though I should not be upset if you would love me with all at your disposal.”

Florence was not the sort of woman to allow her mate to go wanting and so Olivia did not, finding pleasure at the hands, and mouth, of her beloved in the wee hours of the morning as the rest of the household slept. Eventually, when they were tuckered out and sated together, they moved upstairs to their rooms and shared one final kiss before they separated and Olivia settled into her sheets, her dreams sweet.

When she woke, it wasn't the maid who'd come to open her curtains but Valentine.

“Val? I'd thought you in the country...what are you doing here?”

“Drew had to meet Asterly in town to go over a bit of dull investment nonsense so I decided to come with her. I've brought you a tea tray, I thought we might go on a ride in the park together. Your friend, Miss Stone is visiting as well. You two are joined at the hip, I should say. Perhaps we'll all go together.”

She smiled deeply. She and her sisters had vowed to love any Omega that Drew had brought home with her but that had merely been a pact between sisters to remain without jealousy of how sweet the morsel may have been and how much attention they might have stolen from them—but Valentine had made it impossible not to adore him and so she and her sisters had found themselves utterly in love with him. She reached out toward him and he brought himself closer so that she might touch his round belly. “Mmm...and where is Constance?”

“She is off causing trouble, that's where she is.” He popped one hip out and then picked up his teacup to sip it. “Now, are you going to get up or are you going to make me jealous being snuggled up like this all day?”

“I am keen to make you jealous, Valentine. It is all I could hope for...to make at least one Omega jealous in my lifetime.” She giggled and then heard the latch on the adjoining door to Florence's room as it opened. “Florence?”

The girl was in her nightgown and wrapper, her big doe eyes focused upon Val.

“Florence, you've met Valentine before, haven't you?”

Her tiny toes were curled on the carpet. “Y-Yes...I believe we've met.”

“Of course we've met,” Val smiled, giving her a small bow. “Miss Stone, please. Come in, there are no strangers to be had here. I daresay I've not seen closer friends than the likes of you two and please, care not for my presence in your affection.”

Olivia studied him as he said it but he did not elaborate. “It's a chilly morning, Florence, come. Sit with me and we will pick Valentine's brain for his thoughts on your Alpha.”

“Your Alpha?” he asked, his brows twitching downward as he watched Florence cross the room.

“Oh yes,” the Beta told him, gathering his pensive attention again as the little blonde Omega got in under the covers of the bed. “Florence has set her cap for Miss Straffton. Of course, I might compete for the woman's affections...though not very hard, I assume.” She smiled at her mate and then turned back to Val. “Only to keep my dearest Florence on her toes, of course. It will be important for her to procure an Alpha who will care for her and fight for her, after all.”

Val was still staring at the both of them, his eyes passing between them as he appeared to think. “Oh? And erm...you meant to pick my brain?”

“Yes, she's going to need some advice on how to attract her and keep her, of course.”

Valentine let out a rather awkward little laugh and let his hand rest upon his small, rounded belly. “You've heard the tales of how your sister managed to wed me...I've hardly any useful advice for you.”

“Nonsense. You've plenty of good advice. Even if you never used it on my sister. I'm certain you must know all the ways that an Omega makes themselves perfectly irresistible.”

Val laughed and this time it was genuine. “Miss Stone likely has all she needs to be irresistible. Big, bright eyes, a cute, button nose, and a scent as sweet as summer wine. That's if you want an Alpha to look at you...if you want an Alpha to marry you, I'm afraid it's more of finding your soulmate...or at least an Alpha you can stand enough to be around them much of the time. Miss Straffton seems decent. Independently wealthy, no terrible vices I've heard of, stays out of the scandal papers, and has no embarrassing family...” He tapped his lips. “She would make a very fine mate...if that's what you wanted.”

Olivia peered at him curiously. _If that's what you wanted._ Her lips thinned. Why in the world would anyone think that such a thing was _not_ what Florence wanted? Hannah must have spoken to Valentine and told him about the conversation they'd had. He must think that Olivia really wanted Miss Straffton and that she was conceding to Florence out of friendship.

_Oh dear._

Her own family would be even more unsettled by their perceived rivalry than the rest of the ton. She picked up her tea cup and Val poured some for her. She sipped it thoughtfully before she replied. “Well, my Lord, you've been very helpful indeed.”

“Have I?”

“Of course you have. You've given us crucial information about Miss Straffton. She has no embarrassing family, you say.”

“No family at all aside from Lady Turnwell that I've met. No one has ever met her parents.”

“Lady Turnwell, you say?” She glanced at Florence who did not seem to recall the name. “That would be the widow Turnwell? I believe I met her once. She was quite lovely. Shame what happened to her husband.”

“Oh yes,” Valentine stated quickly. “Of course, ladies such as Lady Turnwell have a way of discovering methods of relieving themselves during delicate moments. She's quite well taken care of.”

Olivia smiled, leaning back among her pillows. “You mean to say she has a lover.”

Val raised his brows. “She's had a few.”

“Mm...you know, I don't think I would mind having a lover instead of a mate.” She smiled at Florence who peered at her curiously. “It would be quite freeing, I should think.”

“The Earl would take issue with that,” Val told her, refilling his teacup.

“Dash the Earl,” she replied with a dangerous grin. “Drew can go off gallivanting across the countryside, ravishing young men in clover fields but I cannot take a single lover?”

Florence frowned. “Ravishing young men in clover fields?”

Val cleared his throat, his cheeks a florid pink. “That was very much different, I'll have you know. Not only that but she did marry me.”

Olivia scoffed. “You cannot think to tell me that she did not similarly ravish young women along the way. Or prostitutes...”

Valentine now choked on his tea, coughing a bit before he wiped his mouth with one of the cloth napkins on the tea tray and frowned at her. “What in the world do you think you know about prostitutes? I say, every time I think Chastity might be the worst of the sisters, you or Hannah tells me something ridiculously shocking. I've no doubt the Earl dallied before she ravished me in the clover but that's neither here nor there. If you don't recall, I was an _experienced_ man myself. Not only this but Alphas are expected to have some sort of practice. Else, how could they be expected to make their mates happy?”

“You don't really believe that, Valentine,” Olivia told him flatly, her expression incredulous.

His lips were flat. “I will not begrudge your sister her dalliances.”

“And she will not begrudge you your own. Should I ever meet an Alpha worthy of becoming my mate, they would not begrudge me mine either.”

He sighed, meeting Florence's eyes as though looking for some kind of alliance. When she merely smiled mischievously up at him, he sniffed. “Well...if you were determined to take a lover, I certainly could have no moral high ground to stop you. But if you do...please...do be careful. It is so easy to break your own heart. I should know...I've done it very well in the past and it is not something easily healed.” With that, he left the two of them to their morning, excusing himself in order to relieve himself—something he did frequently on account of his growing pup.

The two lay together, shoulder to shoulder for a time, silent and staring upward.

Florence spoke first. “I shan't break your heart, Olivia.”

“And I shan't break yours.”

The Omega nodded resolutely. “That's out of the way. Now I think we must come to an agreement here and now, Beta.”

“What is that?”

“That she must be utterly besotted by me before we can admit that she is to get more than she bargained for with a marriage to me. In fact, I think I ought to marry her before we reveal it.”

Olivia sat up, staring down at Florence's serious expression. “Absolutely not. That's dishonest. Well...all of it is dishonest, but that is beyond the pale. We cannot be so terrible as to force the woman into a scandal. She must be besotted by you but we cannot have her engaged or married before we tell her. In fact, I think we should tell her on the day of her proposal. When she asks for your hand, you must tell her that you could not accept her without her approval of me...of us. As mates.”

Florence frowned. “But then she could tell us that she will not!”

“And you think she could not tell us that once she is married? She will think us terrible, manipulative little chits should she marry you and _then_ discover the truth.” She slid out of the bed and began to dress, pulling off her nightgown first and barely sparing a glance to Florence's gaze upon her. She donned her chemise and began to put herself together nicely in a simple green gown that complemented her hair. “She will annul the marriage, tell everyone that we are lovers, and have our families so embroiled in scandal that Chastity would never find a husband. _You_ do not happen to have siblings, Miss Stone, but _I_ do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Val's attempt to let them know they can come out at any time...obviously, it doesn't work.
> 
> Like it? Leave a comment!


	6. Chapter 6

It didn't take any amount of brilliance to deduce that Miss Florence Stone was a passionate Omega.  It was odd, Alex thought, for most of the debutantes of the ton were not to discover their passion until after they had found a husband—or a lover—who could coax such a thing out of them.  Puzzled, Alex pondered the case, sitting in her parlor with only a little brandy at the bottom of her glass. The other Alpha's words came back to her and she felt a twinge in her eyelid. “Oh but Miss Stone is so terribly unusual...and only in the most delicious of ways.”

She wanted to punch the bounder in the face for having said it but then again—she could not find any falsity—she was terribly unusual.  That she had not yet found a mate spoke of her stubbornness and of her sharp wit. That men fell over themselves to be with her and yet she dodged them all...yes, there was no doubt the woman had not been compromised by any of them and she certainly had not allowed for any sort of impropriety from them.  She seemed removed from the Alphas and even from the other debutantes.

They had said that she attended mostly Beta parties and was often at her close friend's home.  A Beta girl and an Omega girl with an alliance of some kind was not something often seen, however the Beta was an Idlewind—and Alex had danced with an Idlewind before.  Hannah had been a force of nature and no doubt, from the way Miss Stone spoke of Betas, every one of those sisters was likely to be similar.

“More brandy, my Lady?”  Russo was at her side, the decanter in his hand.

“Don't call me 'my Lady,' Russ, it's embarrassing.”  She held out her glass and watching him fill it a decent amount.

“You cannot deny yourself your heritage,” he replied, his voice tinged with a feathering of his Italian heritage, soft and unruffled.  He'd been with the family too long and had once even served as her father's valet.

“I can deny anything I wish.”

“Then I cannot.”

She tightened the side of her mouth and waited for him to leave before she took longer sips of her brandy.  It was difficult already to avoid her father's legacy and Russo always had to bring it up. He knew why she was in England at her father's London house rather than rubbing elbows with the aristocracy back in what he thought was “home.”  Dark haired girls with wild brown eyes were her father's weakness. Not only that but she'd heard that English women were much more tame—not that it seemed to be the case with Miss Stone, anyway. Russo's greatest wish was that she would return to Italy to her father's sprawling villa by the sea and take her rightful title as la Contessa.  But Alex had no intention of returning to Italy unless she absolutely had to. She also had no intention of returning to her father's name, preferring that of her mother instead.

Finishing her brandy, she laid down for the night, bent on forgetting that she was her father's daughter.  At least for the moment. It was impossible for her to consider that she was going to take after him in any fashion, as he was the antithesis of all she held to be good and right.  But then...what in the world was she doing having such a pull toward Miss Stone of all women?

She couldn't shake how the girl had made her feel even after she had woken in the morning and over her eggs and kippers, she determined that she would make good on her promise that Miss Stone would know who had sent her flowers.  Once she was dressed, she made her way out and took nearly half an hour putting together a bouquet at an outdoor market, paying the courier to hand-deliver them and to make very certain they were given straight to Miss Stone and to no one else.  Of course, she did remember the most important part—that they be delivered to the _correct address._

“Are you certain, Miss?” the courier asked.  “But this is Lady Netherfield's address? I've delivered here loads o' times.  Her Ladyship sends gifts to 'er 'usband near every week.”

Alex smiled at him.  “And Miss Olivia Idlewind is a very close friend to Miss Stone, not that you heard that from me.  Now please, go. And here is your extra tip for placing it in the correct hands.”

“Well alright, Miss.  If you're sure.”

She was and she was more than happy to watch him leave with the bouquet which was comprised of the most lovely purple and whites—a combination that would certain pay homage to the girl's regal beauty.  Not only that but she had made certain that the petals were lightly misted as to place just the barest hints of moisture upon them so that they might glimmer in the light. Feeling terribly smug, she took her carriage home and lounged in a chair in the garden for a small time, enjoying the way the honey bees buzzed to the flowers that hung from the vines that crawled up the side of the house.

“Your tea, my L—Miss Straffton,” Russo murmured as he came from the house.  “And this note has come for you as well.” He delivered that upon its own plate and stood straight nearby as she read it, waiting to be dismissed.

Alex scanned it, her smile wide.  “Mmm...send word to the Idlewind house for Miss Stone.  Tell her she is more than welcome to visit at her convenience.”

“Very good, mum.”  He gave a small bow.

“Russ?”

“Yes, mum?”

“There are two teacups here.”

He nodded softly.  “Lord Rainton is in the front parlor.  Should you like him to join you or shall I tell him you're not receiving?”

Alex smiled.  “Tell him to get out here.  I should like to chat with the cad, if I might.”  With that Russo retreated and Alex waited until she spied the blonde Baron as he emerged from the door to the garden before she poured him his tea.  “Rainton, you dog. Were you at the Idlewind house as well?”

“What?” he asked, quirking a brow.

“Nevermind.  Merely sending your step daughter flowers is all.”

“Florence?” he asked, approaching her and taking his seat across from her.  “Good god, you can't be hoping to get on with that little devil. She'll eat you alive.”

She put her feet up upon a nearby footstool, sipping at her tea and crossing her legs at the ankles, utterly unconcerned by Rainton's pronouncement.  “She might be a devil but I find myself rather intrigued by her. She's not like many of her colleagues, is she? I've yet to have found an Omega debutante who would even pay me the slightest attention and here she is and she's gotten me all wound up, it seems.”

Rainton stared at her, a polite befuddlement frozen in his features as he held his teacup halfway to his face.

“You can't be too cross with me, can you?  If I were to pursue her, that is?” She wasn't going to let him stop her, even if he told her to go right to hell.  “She is a little coy but I daresay I've found her quite refreshing. As her ruling Alpha, I should ask you if you would accept my courtship of her.”

“Court...ship...” he mused, still staring at her with that unique expression.

“You had to know this was coming from some Alpha one day,” she went on, sipping her own tea.  “You couldn't have thought she would retire a spinster. She's absolutely gorgeous.”

“Well I can't argue that,” the Baron agreed, nodding and finally taking a gulp from his cup.  “But at such a high cost. She's very difficult, you know. And I'm not going to tell you that you can't chase her—what kind of a man would I be if I did?  After all, I'm not her father. She's nearly my age.”

“Do you think your mate would approve?”

“If Florence is happy, my mate is happy.  That's the end of it as far as he's concerned.”  He sat upright, appearing a tad uncomfortable. “But I should tell you, Alpha, she is a very peculiar little Omega.  She'll chew you right up.”

“Is this your attempt to dissuade me?  It won't work.” She was chuckling to herself.

Russo appeared again from the door, drawing the Alphas' attention.  “Miss Florence Stone, to see you, mum.”

Rainton stood immediately as did Alex, the both of them setting down their tea as Florence tapped her way into the garden with the little Lord Rainton at her heels.

“Mate,” Rainton loosed as Alex gave a small bow.  His voice and scent were so filled with adoration that Alex could have choked upon it.  The man was grinning like a lovestruck fool and it was then that she realized that the small Omega must not have been tempted out of faithfulness by lust—it surely was by a deep and abiding love.

“Hello Simon,” his mate replied.  “I'd not expected you here...”

“And I'd not expected you.  Come...uh...let us sit on the other side of the garden.  I think Miss Straffton would appreciate a time to chat with Florence without our ears.  We'll still see them, of course.”

“Of course.”

Florence, without waiting for an invitation, took Rainton's seat and picked up his half-filled teacup.

“Miss Stone,” Alex began, “I will have Russo get you—”

“Oh no, it's fine.  We're probably a very savage family, but using Simon's things has never bothered me.”  She sipped from it, leaving Alex quite speechless. “Please, Alpha, sit. And pick up your jaw.  One might think you've been scandalized.”

If Alex wasn't, Russo might have been.  His eyes were trained on the little Omega, his normally unruffled countenance a fair bit slack from his surprise.  He peered at the Alpha suddenly, gathering his wits until he could find his words. “I shall bring out some finger sandwiches, mum.”

“Wonderful,” Stone smiled happily.  “What a lovely house. I do apologize for arriving so quickly.  It is only that your note arrived at the very moment that I was going to go for a ride in the park and though it may seem too eager of me to come right over, I do rarely make friends with such lovely scents.  As you can imagine, I am only too used to scents like Simon's. He is a bit of a bastard for it, isn't he?”

Alex felt a breath whoosh out of her before she nearly hollered out in a peal of laughter.  She was hooting for a little bit, wiping her eyes to rid them of the tears that had formed when she was able to speak again.  “Good gracious, little one, and here the men in drawing rooms have led me to believe that you're some kind of ethereal goddess!  You truly are barbaric.”

She smiled at Alex with a smugness that was contagious.  “I should not wish for you to be surprised about anything, of course.  You should know that I am like nothing you've ever seen before. I also have no reason to hide anything about me from you.  After all...I don't need an Alpha. I could retire myself in a little cottage unto myself and spend the rest of my days picking wildflowers and laying in the sun.”

“Lord Rainton has done well by you then.”

“Simon is a godsend.  I've never felt so free.”  She looked it too. A wisp or two of her hair had been left out of her coiffure and framed her face so that she appeared almost like the fairy Alex had first imagined.  Should she suddenly grow a pair of light butterfly wings, the Alpha may not find herself nearly as shocked as she should have been. Her eyes were bright and beautiful, her cheeks dusted with a tiny bit of pink as though just barely kissed by the sun.  She was the most stunning example of an Omega that Alex thought she'd ever seen.

“Far be it from me to impose upon that freedom...but Miss Stone, you are captivating.  Even as brutal as you are.”

Her smile was sincere as she dropped her eyes to the stone walk with an attractive modesty that was surely many times rehearsed.  “You flatter me...one can only assume you have a motive for it.”

“I should like to court you.  I'm certain you've heard this before.  Perhaps you even have a deck full of suitors.  Perhaps you draw a card each time you need an escort.  No matter, I should like my name upon one of those cards and I will certainly weather your savage nature if it means that I should have a chance.”  She leaned forward, watching the girl's cheeks gain a little more pink.

“Normally I take my very close friend with me if I need an escort.  She is very accommodating, you see. I hate to go anywhere without her.”  She drew her bottom lip into her mouth and Alex was transfixed by it.

“Then bring her as well.”  What was she saying? Relegating her best friend—the Beta Idlewind—to the position of chaperone?  That was likely _not_ Miss Stone's idea of a decent Alpha's proposal.

“You do not think—how interesting of you, Miss Straffton.  You would truly not mind it? I scarce go to any event without her upon my arm.  I think we could be inseparable.”

Alex had a moment in which she suddenly felt an uneasiness come over her yet she could not explain why.  “Well I'm certain you can make time for me, couldn't you Miss Stone?”

She chewed her lip for a moment, regarding Alex coyly.  “When you put like that...I suppose I might. Of course, you'll have to come and meet her.”

“Of course.  Forgive me but you came so quickly, I will have to give you your courting gift as you leave.”

Miss Stone, in a move that could have completely destroyed Alex had she been much younger and less experienced, produced a small handkerchief by reaching with two fingers into the bodice of her gown.  The cloth, which had been nestled between her small breasts, was positively saturated in her dulcet scent.

“Miss Stone...you must know what sort of a woman keeps her favors...”

“Between her favors?” she asked blandly, her brows climbing in challenge.  “Are you here to scold me, Alpha? You may keep your scolds. I'll hear plenty of them from my Oma if he should ever find out how naughty I've been.”

Alex's chuckle was nervous, her fingers tingling as she held the cloth and folded it carefully to place in her pocket.  “And how naughty _have_ you been?”

“Shh,” she replied, putting a finger to her lips.  “You're the only witness. I daresay I thought you'd be a good sport.”

She would most certainly try, she thought to herself.  Their meeting did not last long after and it was only a few evenings before she had found herself standing within Lady Whelton's parlor.  Miss Stone had not yet arrived and Alex could feel the weight of her favor as it was folded up in her inner breast pocket. The thing itself was weightless but she could feel it there nonetheless.  The girl had truly captured her imagination.

_This is dangerous,_ she thought.  A passionate Omega was one who could tempt and deceive.  A passionate Omega was the very sort she had insisted to herself that she did not want.  She wanted mild. She wanted boring. She wanted a girl who would make a fine wife to her.  Not a girl who was whimsical and wild. Omegas were flighty and, if Miss Stone was anything to go by, a bit odd.  Though she had gone through all of these second thoughts many times over the course of days, she still found herself very much interested in what color the girl would be wearing and what sort of fashion her hair might take.

She had yet to take her scent to bed with her.  She couldn't risk it. Her lust was strong and perhaps as strong as her father's.  She couldn't be tempted like this. Not yet, anyhow.

“Miss Straffton,” she heard from the doorway as her eyes had settled upon the unique appearance of the rug beneath her feet.  It only figured of course that she would let her eyes wander and the very target of her wayward affections should find her staring at the floor.

“Miss Stone,” she greeted, shooting her eyes up to find a little Omega approaching her with a wide smile.

“I'm overjoyed you've come.”  She put her hand out and Alex kissed the backs of her fingers.  “I simply must tell you that I've scarce thought of anything else.  You've occupied all my thoughts, you know. And to think you had sold yourself so short in regards to your beauty.  How dashing you look this afternoon. This is my very good friend, Miss Olivia Idlewind. Have you met?”

She lifted her eyes, meeting a light and lovely cinnamon from a tall Beta girl who suddenly and inexplicably had Alex's breath catching in her throat.

Between them there was no compare.  Olivia Idlewind was tall, though not as tall as Alex, with rich auburn locks pulled up in braids that wrapped around her head.  If Florence Stone were the sun, shining and honey, Olivia Idlewind was most assuredly the moon which pulled and taunted the tides.  Alex couldn't find her voice and she was vaguely aware that she was staring openly, the girl peering back at her with those large doe-like eyes which spoke of her innocent nature and no doubt a fount of softness in her affections.  God, she was lovely and here she was, Miss Stone's best friend and confidant.

_Lord have mercy…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alex: _Shit._


	7. Chapter 7

This was certainly not how the evening was supposed to have gone. Olivia was supposed to be floating in the background, determining her position enough to judge whether or not Miss Straffton would have made a decent choice for a mate. She was supposed to be looking over Florence's shoulder to make certain that the girl wasn't making a complete ass of herself in pursuit of this rather tall and rather handsome woman. She hadn't expected to have been swept up into the gaze of an Alpha and she was uncertain exactly how she should have been reacting. Florence was no help in this regard, looking between them with a fair bit of veiled confusion masked in a charming politeness.

Miss Straffton had begun by forming an awkward introduction to her and was now standing politely to her side, asking her small questions that were indeed harmless but had left Florence without a conversational partner. It was very odd, to say the least and Olivia wasn't prepared. How could she have been? She hadn't expected to suddenly become the center of attention—though perhaps this was some kind of odd Alpha trick: to play a woman off of her friend and steer her toward jealousy.

Still, even as Olivia considered it, she dashed it away just as quickly. Miss Straffton clearly hadn't the guile to attempt such trickery. She was awkward and endearing, not sly and calculating like some of the other men she'd had the misfortune to meet. Not only that, but it seemed as though she were quite cognizant of the fact that she conversed with a Beta rather than a woman of the fairer sex. How she could make this distinction, Olivia wasn't quite certain. It was in the way her expressions shifted perhaps or even the manner in which she spoke, soft but not only so.

Still, Florence was seated off to Olivia's other side, peering in on the conversation with a bit of curiosity piqued in her scent. She had taken great pains to appear as attractive as possible for this little gathering with puffy feathers adorning her hair and a darling powder blue gown with a swooping neckline that did plenty to accentuate her bosom. For all she had done to attract the Alpha, Straffton's eyes barely even glossed over her this evening, every bit of her focus intent upon Olivia.

_ This is simply embarrassing, _ she thought to herself, sending covert little glances toward her mate while she was carelessly doted upon. Despite herself, she was enjoying the little attentions paid to her, flushing attractively when the woman found her a glass of claret and began asking her about her sisters as though she were truly interested.

“The Earl is quite the force, understand.”

“Have you not met her?” Olivia asked politely.

“Hardly. We were introduced once, of course, and I can't forget the moment. No one forgets the Earl, I suppose.”

“No, no one forgets her, that is for certain. For one reason or another. I can't imagine many of those reasons are fond when it comes to much of the ton but at least her transgressions are not really her fault but the fault of her sex.” Was she becoming too bold? Had she said too much? She wasn't used to this sort of attention.

“I suppose it is the nature of men to blame women for their womanhood,” Straffton supplied. “It is a tool for separating those men from the others—their outspokenness on the subject. Having been a woman for all my life, I think I may be some sort of professional about it...” she joked.

“And now being an Alpha, do you think yourself a better woman for it?” This was the kind of question Florence would have asked just to be peevish. Olivia asked it because she was genuinely curious.

“Oh no. Oh no indeed, quite the opposite. It is almost as though I have lost something very dear to me. Expectations for myself, I think. Now I'm trapped between two worlds. The world of being a woman and the world of being an Alpha. Perhaps it is the same for Omega men. They have an expectation for themselves and then...in a wink...it is taken.”

Olivia nodded politely. “And yet while their freedom is restricted, yours is bestowed.”

“No...not exactly,” she mused, her voice soft and somewhat sad. “It must be difficult to understand an Alpha's burden...particularly a woman Alpha's burden. It is as though I have the same amount of disdain heaped upon me for my womanhood and another dip of it for having the strength and manner of an Alpha. As though they think that what I  _ ought _ to have done was remain subservient and meek...and sometimes, to my own detriment, I begin to believe that I would have rathered it that way.”

She was an enigma, Olivia decided, easing closer to Florence surreptitiously while they sat together on the settee. What she said seemed quite scandalous indeed—to have wished not to have presented as an Alpha seemed very odd but then again, when Olivia reflected on the manner in which her sister was treated for her  _ gall _ to inherit her father's title, it seemed almost as though it were obvious as to why any woman might balk at the prospect of presenting. It wasn't well done of them according to society and many of them left their homes and their families in order to disappear among the tradesmen. She thought of Victoria Lanchester's mate, the Captain who was now a Marquess simply due to her father's reasoning that if Drew Idlewind could become the Earl of Netherfield, his own heir should have rightfully been his eldest daughter—it was baffling how such changes occurred.

Olivia fiddled with the lace of Florence's skirt where it sat next to her, frothed and lovely. She sipped from her glass of claret and studied Straffton carefully. “Well, Alpha, I for one am quite glad you did present as an Alpha rather than staying a Beta. I know, personally, how difficult it is to find interest in the brutish tendencies of men...you must have found it very laborious even before presentation...that is what they suggest, of course.”

“They suggest so for propriety's sake,” she supplied, but added: “...but you wouldn't be wrong on that account. At the risk of sounding like some kind of deviant, as a Beta I was rather taken by others of my own sex.”

Florence fluttered her fan toward her throat. “How interesting of you to admit to such a thing. I feel that when considering the past interactions of those who present in such manners, it is difficult to ascertain whether or not their actions or feelings were deviant at all. Surely if they had remained a Beta, they would have been considered a deviant but in your case...” She lowered her voice, leaning a bit across Olivia. “What if you had kissed a girl? What if you had been discovered? Then...when they had gasped about your deviance, you presented! How should they feel about it then?”

Straffton blinked, as if having forgotten that Florence even existed. “I can hardly know. I was a shy young woman...and it seems almost as though that were a whole different life now. As though I could not imagine myself any different than what I am now.”

Olivia took another gulp of her claret, wishing it were brandy. “I daresay I could kiss a girl.”

Florence gave a tiny surprised gasp and then giggled a bit behind her hand. Straffton stared at her, baffled though impressed, it seemed. Her own candidness should have surprised her but it didn't and Olivia merely quirked her mouth to the side.

“I say so because it's true. Not for any other reason. Men are...really, so boring.”

Florence tittered softly. “How true.”

The Alpha shifted in her seat, restless it seemed. “And Alphas?”

“Alpha can be plainly boring but I cannot say so of your sort. I have met very few and I know my sister quite well. She's much different from the suitors who hound at Omega heels.”

“I would like to think I'm quite different from those as well.” She was studying Olivia's face, her eyes burning over her as though they tried to memorize her every detail. It was almost as though she could not peer away despite wishing to, the glint of her gaze like the heat of the sun's rays. “There are far too many men in the marriage market who seek not to enhance a girl's life but to destroy it...”

“Surely not...” Olivia supplied but it felt half-hearted.

“Oh they may not think it and they may even deny it. But in truth, they will take their mistresses and prove to be unfaithful in time.”

Olivia glanced to Florence and then back to Miss Straffton, puzzled, “And you, Alpha?”

“I will deny it to the end.”

“But will you do it?”

She was quiet, finally ripping her eyes away from the Beta's face to study the carpet near her feet. “I cannot say. I fear it. I wish to be stronger.”

“Where is your confidence, Alpha? Can you not defeat your own self?” Where did this come from? Olivia balked at herself and her boldness, blaming the claret internally for allowing her to speak as such to an Alpha. Still, she was curious. Most Alphas were awash with confidence and even arrogance, proclaiming themselves to be paragons in every sense of the word. This one was much more bashful yet likely had no reason to be. She was, after all, sitting in the parlor of Lady Whelton. “Nevermind,” Olivia said, waving her hand in the air to dispel her own question. “Perhaps Florence and I will take a walk around the garden and you shall accompany us. Florence has told me all about you, she cannot cease singing your praises.”

To that the Alpha flushed, as though embarrassed, giving Florence a somewhat alarmed little stare before she nodded and raised herself up to escort them both outside.

The rest of the evening moved on and found Miss Straffton nearly stuck to her side. When, finally, the time came that guests had gone, Olivia sat fretfully across from Florence in the coach. Their feet were together over the clay pot warmer, tangled together through their skirts and she was twisting her fingers together.

“Florence...”

“Yes?”

“That was dreadful.”

The Omega cocked up a brow. “Dreadful? What was so dreadful about it? What I saw was an Alpha quite willing to entertain the notion of courting a Beta girl.” Still, her scent was a small bit askew and Olivia's nose was much too sensitive not to notice.

“She barely even looked at you.”

“Because she was staring at  _ you _ , Olivia.” She flashed her a soft smile in the dimness of the coach as they rocked back and forth on the way back to Drew's town house. “She seemed very much enamored by you.”

“And yet I cannot help but smell your displeasure at the notion. Can you not smell mine? Where was her fire for you?”

“Obviously I am not the prettier of the two of us so—”

“How can you say that?” she blurted suddenly, drawing Florence's stunned gaze while she floundered in her seat, near to flapping her hands about with her shock. “You are...you are...good god, Florence Stone, you are a  _ goddess. _ ”

Florence's mouth curved then into a bashful smile and she let her eyes move to her hands where they sat in her lap. “Forgive me, Beta, but you cannot expect me to agree with you. My ideal is not myself, after all...it is you.”

Olivia was feeling quite flustered after all of this and she sat back upon the bench feeling rather peevish. “Well what do we do now?”

“What do you mean?”

“She's supposed to propose to you.”

Florence let out a small but loud little bark of laughter that startled Olivia where she sat. “Gracious, Olivia, I thought it was obvious! We get her to propose to  _ you! _ ”

“Well that's not fair, is it?” Her heart was sagging. She couldn't imagine poor Florence without a mate. Herself, it was only too easy—it wasn't completely unfathomable for a mated Omega to take in a Beta companion. But then again, she thought, furrowing her brow. It wasn't as though Florence didn't have a mate already...was she discounting herself again?

“Seems fair enough to me...though if I am not enough to hold her attentions, how in the heavens am I ever going to be enough to hold yours? Tell me, Olivia...you find her sweet and...and attractive...”

“Well, she is very pretty,” she provided, wary of Florence's goal in this.

“How pretty? Prettier than I?”

“Of course not. Did I not just tell you that you were a goddess?” She took Florence's hands and pulled the girl forward by them until she'd brought their faces close. Then, she kissed the Omega right on the tip of her nose in an affectionate gesture that was just silly enough to cause them both to laugh. “She is adequate. If that is what you need from me, then the term will do.”

Florence seemed placated at the very least for the moment and she gave Olivia a sly gaze. “You know...as you were talking to her and  _ shocking _ her with your admissions, I was imagining the way you might look naked in her lap.”

“You were not,” she teased. “I would have smelled it if you were.”

“I can hide my arousal.”

“No you cannot,” she scoffed. “Knowing you cannot, you should take care. We still have to get up to my room before you can allow yourself to be flustered.”

Florence boldly moved across the coach to sit next to her on the bench, ignoring Olivia's protestations in order to bunch up her skirts, baring her legs to the cool night air.

“Florence!”

“Oh do shut up, Olivia. You're awfully boring sometimes. I have to make very certain that you're not going to leave me for some brute of an Alpha woman.”

“And to that end you will ravish me in the carriage?”

“Absolutely.”

Her whole body was feeling quite warm and she couldn't deny the sensuous arousal that was creeping into her own mild scent, mingling with Florence's sweet and sticky excitement. Dampness had already pooled between her thighs when she felt her mate's fingers find her.

“Oh Olivia,” Florence chided softly, her breath tickling her ear as she murmured, “you put up such a fuss only to be like this when I touch you...”

She reached up to gently hold her Omega's shoulder, sighing to urge her to touch her more. “Don't embarrass me, Miss Stone...” The sweet and tender brush of those fingers over the most delicate part of her made her gasp and shudder. “If you are to tease me like this, do make certain you can finish the job before...”

“Before we are home? I'd better get started. I think, though, I should have assistance from a particular fantasy. I do know how much you love your stories.” She nibbled along the shell of Olivia's ear before kissing her throat. “Do you wish to know what I thought of you this evening? Miss Straffton was very much enraptured by you...I cannot imagine how enraptured she shall be when she is buried within you.” She eased two of her fingers inside Olivia's body, curling them until she had pressed deeply against the place inside her that ached for touch.

“Ahn...Florence...”

“How wet you are, my love. You do enjoy the idea...perhaps you might enjoy the idea of such a strong woman opening you up and coaxing a big knot inside you...”

The Beta let out an incredulous but breathless scoff. “Knots are for your kind.”

“Knots are for anybody who wishes to be thoroughly rutted...and you, my love, are just the woman who could use one. I could see it now, opening you up here like you've never been opened before...and I could watch you...writhing with pleasure...”

Her words, coupled with gentle thrusts of her fingers and the brush of her palm over Olivia's swollen pearl were driving her straight toward oblivion. She could think of nothing else but the subtle and yet lancing pleasures that shot through her body, tightening her muscles and causing every fiber of her to react in wonderful agony. She couldn't imagine how it might feel to be so taken by an Alpha. To be so overwhelmed by the power of a lover. She had adored the soft manner in which Florence loved her and yet...yet...she was curious as to how raw a woman like Straffton might make her feel. “F-Florence...” she panted, opening her legs wantonly.

“She'll worship your body just like I do,” the Omega whispered, quickening the motions of her hand until Olivia was mewling. “Then she'll plunder you for your glorious treasures. Maybe she'll even put some pups in you. Should you like that, Olivia? Should you like to take her pups?” Florence's other hand was fussing with her bodice, slipping within it to cup at her naked breast, pinching at her nipple.

“ _ Florence...I can hardly stand this... _ ”

“If you wish for me to stop, all you must do is come for me, darling. Just like you'll come for her when she's driving into you over and over and—”

Olivia felt her body tighten, squeezing hard around Florence's fingers in steady pulsing waves made stronger by the girl's insistence upon fucking her through it. “ _ Ehhn! Fl-Florence! _ ”

The girl withdrew slowly, fluffing Olivia's skirts back down and rearranging her bodice to seem as though nothing untoward had happened between them. “Well. Now that it's all settled—”

“ _ What _ , I ask, is  _ all settled _ ?” Olivia breathed, heat suffusing her cheeks.

“The matter of Miss Straffton of course. I'm satisfied you won't be leaving me...after all, I can render you an absolute mess in less than three minutes, there's no Alpha who could do that to you...at least not right now.” As confident as Florence wished to sound, Olivia could hear, still, a bit of worry in her voice.

“Gracious, Omega. If I was to contend with two mates who might send me into such fits, I will have one foot already in the grave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> God they are the perfect couple. You like? Leave me a comment! :D


	8. Chapter 8

_ “Where is your confidence, Alpha?” _

To be frank, she wasn't quite sure where she had left it. Not only that, she wasn't certain where the devil she had left the entirety of her brain. How could she almost completely ignore the woman she was courting to fawn over and dote upon the very best of her friends? The entire carriage ride back to her house had her both fuming over her own stupidity and elated at the way Olivia's eyes had beheld her. Her conflicted emotions were so heavy that when Russo opened the door to welcome her back, he gently coughed with it.

“My apologies, Russ,” she grumbled as she brushed past him. He couldn't possibly comprehend how poorly she had done by herself. This was her worst nightmare, after all. She really was to become her father. She truly was going to embarrass herself before the entire nobility and become what she hated so badly. She could find no solution to this farce that had become her life.

Florence Stone was everything she should have wanted in a woman. She was an Omega first and foremost. She was sly, wily, and devilishly interesting. She had a spark to her that she did not hide as other Omegas hid but allowed to shine and flaunted it with abandon. Miss Stone was a maverick in every sense and held so much mischievous energy inside her that Alex could only assume the woman would be a tireless lover and an energetic and tenacious little wife. Her heats would drive them both into snares of lustful pleasure and she would be as demanding and willful as she ever was...but could that hold Alex's spirit? Perhaps not. There had been men through the ages who had tried to tie themselves down to one woman with marriage, convinced that by the union and by their lust for the woman, they could keep their eyes and their hands to themselves. Such things did not make an Alpha faithful.

She made a fist and gently tapped her own head, increasing the pressure until it hurt a bit. “You've the devil in your blood,” she muttered to herself. It struck her that most Alphas had their heads turned away from  _ Betas _ by the whimsical natures of Omegas and here she was with the opposite having been true. How could she expect herself to be happy and content for the rest of her life with Olivia then? Could she be tempted by another Beta? By another Omega? By Florence Stone herself perhaps?

_ And what of the two friends? Am I to drive them apart? _ This would perhaps be the greatest crime of them all, she thought savagely. To destroy the close friendship of two women due to her own lack of control over her emotions. But good god, she needed a woman. She needed a mate who could force her to never look upon another woman again—who was such a force of nature that she could not possibly consider even peering upon another with lust. But there was no woman like that on the Earth. There was nothing that could help her here save perhaps the words of a man who had once been a philanderer and been reformed.

She paced about her drawing room, staring into the fire.  _ A man who had once been a philanderer. _

_ Asterly. _

Having spent only a few minutes pacing about the room, she marched out of it, nearly bowling into Russo on the way out.

“Pardon me, Russ, I've need of the carriage.”

“Again, my Lady?”

“Don't call me that, Russ...gods, yes. Again. I'm going mad, can't you tell?” He didn't deserve such peevishness from her and so she sighed. “I'm sorry, old boy. I can't seem to get a handle on myself. I've made an ass out of myself tonight.”

“Your courtship of Miss Stone did not go as planned?” He was still calm and unruffled, his posture straight and proper.

“Russ, you knew my father. You knew what he did to my mother. How he left her to endure her heats alone.”

“Yes,” he replied softly, his Beta scent marked with a pinch of sympathy and a mild perturbed note.

She turned back around into the drawing room and made for the brandy, pouring Russo a glass and handing it to him before she poured one for herself. The servant peered down at it questioningly, holding it against his chest politely as though he were not to drink it while he watched her take a gulp of hers.

Alex cleared her throat. “He was a right devil. A man who took every lover he could possibly take. I suppose you met a few of those lovers. Gave them your stare like you have. They probably picked up their clothes and ran off after you'd given them that stare, didn't they?” She laughed but quit when it sounded discordant to her own ears. “I thought if I stayed in England...if I didn't allow those beautiful Italian girls to look at me with their scorching eyes and their raven hair...”

“My Lady...”

“I thought I could avoid my father's work within me. My father's blood.”

Russo looked down at the brandy again and then took a measured sip of it. “My Lady, perhaps you sit down and tell me what's happened.”

She sat and then immediately stood again, nearly sloshing her brandy. “No! No...I cannot sit. I must speak to the Duke.”

“The Duke?” Russo asked, bewildered.

“He's the only one I know who's reformed himself. He found a mate who could make him look at no other Omega and now he's happily married and quite faithful. He's the only one who can help me. He's a devil but then, so am I.”

“I daresay, my Lady, you are hardly a devil. Even that you can consider yourself as such implies that—”

“The carriage, Russ, please.” The memory of Olivia's beautiful hair pulled up atop her head, allowing only delicate, wisping curls to fall about her neck was still haunting her even now. Even as she chastised herself for her own weakness. She wanted to quietly undress this girl. She wanted to slide the sleeves of her chemise down until her pale breasts were revealed to raw moonlight. Her fantasy was slowly interrupted by the most guilty of thoughts—that of what Florence Stone might look like, splayed out beneath her upon a wool blanket in mid-morning. The sun glinting from her dark honey hair as she lay flustered and naked, her thighs open and the center of her dripping with—

“It is ready, my Lady,” came Russo's voice, startling her out of her reverie as she whirled around toward the door, shocked to find that she'd been daydreaming for so long. “V-Very good, Russ. Thank you. I-I...”

The man eyed her with a sympathetic glance before he left her, still holding onto his brandy. Likely he would need it.

She quickly got into the coach and, flustered, told her driver to take her to Asterly's town manor. She couldn't sit still. In fact, she thought at least twice of flinging herself from the coach door and wildly running through the streets until she could find somewhere she could hide and clear her head. How was she to bring something like this up? What if he wouldn't see her? What if he would find this intrusion to be an impertinence? What if he thought her mad?

When the door opened, she startled so badly that a small cry came from her lips and she could see her Beta driver's face wrinkle a bit with the press of her scent. She could smell it herself but could not know how oppressive it truly was. Emerging and with her feet firmly upon the stone walk, she peered up at the impressive house and then looked back toward her driver. He stared back at her, rather wide-eyed, seemingly just as intimidated as she was.

Taking a huge breath in, she tried to channel as much of her bravery as she could, puffing out her chest. The garden party hadn't ended until evening and the stars were blinking in and out. She could smell cigar smoke and thought it might have been wafting out of one of the windows. Perhaps it wouldn't be a terrible time to call. Perhaps he might welcome the distraction. She came to the door and before she could even use the knocker, it was opened by a Beta servant who peered at her curiously and with a decidedly saucy little slant to his mouth.

She almost couldn't speak. “A-Alexandra Straffton. I've come to request an audience with His Grace.”

The servant gave a very professional nod. “Please wait here, Miss Straffton. I will inquire as to whether or not he will see you.”

She thought about escaping right now but for the slightest of moments she caught a scent that hung in the air and it intrigued her. She stayed if only for this scent which seemed to float indefinitely just out of reach. Sweet, like an Omega, but masculine still.  _ Ah. The little Duke. _ She felt her heart warm and slow its beat as she softened to it, grateful that there was at least one thing in the world that could calm her. When the Beta returned, she felt less out-of-place and regarded him with a deliberate calm.

“He will see you.”

“Wonderful,” she replied, nodding as though this was what she expected. That was something her father had taught her—always appear as though you meant to be wherever you are. She was led into a nearby parlor and found Asterly standing with his elbow upon the mantle of his fireplace, leaning with a drink in his hand while he peered over at her, his eyes drawn from a wing-backed chair that held a lounging and happy little Omega. She immediately bowed low to both of them. “Your Grace.”

“Straffton,” Asterly greeted in a clearly amused tone, “funny to find you upon my doorstep. I was of the impression that you cared not for my company.”

She swallowed and tried for a smile. “It is with much shock to me as much as to you, Sir, that I should find myself here. As far as my own opinions go, I find that they are subject to change as much as the tides are subject to the moon. Perhaps that is the nature of my feminine aspect.”

The Omega lifted his glass of amber liquor from a side table and sipped it, his expression polite. “I do not think it is particularly a gendered trait. I seem to feel the same from time to time.”

“Gracious of you, Sir,” Alex replied, grateful then not only for this little one's scent but for his demeanor.

Asterly slowly walked to the cupboard where there stood a crystal decanter and he poured from it into another free glass. “Take heart, Straffton, you'll find no enemies here.”

“I was hoping you might say that. As it happens, I believe I require some advice.”

“Advice?” he asked, turning around and handing her the glass. “From a man like me?” He seemed coy when he said it, as though he were used to doling out advice and as though he were very much used to seeing go unheeded.

She flicked her eyes from the Alpha to the Omega and back. “Well...yes. You see...it has to do with um...matters of...” she paused for a moment, “... _ romance. _ ”

The Duke looked at his mate and then back at her. “Forgive me, Straffton but we do come as a pair.”

She stared at him a moment and then nodded lightly. “Of course. Um...w-well...”

The small Duke was looking at her still, his face still holding a genuine expression of polite curiosity that she found both endearing and infuriating. How the hell was she supposed to detail the course of her thoughts in front of an  _ Omega? _ He was bound to think her a scoundrel of the highest order. But then again, she thought suddenly, he had  _ married _ a scoundrel of the highest order.

“Why don't you sit, Straffton?” Asterly told her and she did. “Start at the beginning, perhaps.”

She gulped at her bourbon, unsure where the hell 'the beginning' was. “I um...there's this girl.”

Asterly came to the back of his husband's chair and leaned over it, resting his arms on the back of it while he looked at her over his mate's steady gray gaze. The two of them together were going to drive her to madness.

“She's beautiful...but not exactly what I was thinking when I set out to find a wife.” She paused to find the both of them giving thoughtful nods. “She's much more  _ wild _ than I thought an English wife would be. She's got a manner to her that is nearly barbaric but it can hardly be brought against her character for her beauty and her passion would make it unthinkable to exclude her.”

“You're talking about Florence Stone,” Asterly mused. “She's certainly got a um...”

His mate finished for him, his tone light and fair. “A  _ vibrant _ personality.”

“Right, that's just what I was going to say.” He smiled. “You think you're going to have a bit of time with her courtship? Has she been receptive to you? I was under the impression that she was—”

“ _ Ahem, _ ” the Omega grunted, clearing his throat.

“Right. Perhaps I was mistaken. She's a lively girl. What is it that's vexed you, Alpha?”

Alex looked between the two of them, feeling somewhat unsettled. “Well...it is not really Miss Stone who's vexed me but...well rather that she informed me that she's got a lovely Beta companion who she brings with her nearly everywhere and when I laid eyes upon this creature I was...well, Sir, I've been near beside myself with thoughts of her persuasive beauty...”

They both stared at her, their eyes wide for a moment before they both spoke at once and then ceased, the Alpha giving way to the Omega for him to speak first. The little one nodded a bit with his brows furrowed to gather his thoughts again before he addressed her.

“Miss Straffton, this would be Olivia Idlewind?”

“Yes.”

“Right. And do you find yourself suddenly in love with her? Is this your debate?”

“Correct, Sir. I...” she looked down at her bourbon and then back up, “I cannot cease my relationship with Florence and pursue her Beta friend, that would likely get me thrown out upon my ear. If it did not then I would be destroying a faithful and potent friendship and, I don't suppose you two might know of the closeness of women but...perhaps you have at least an idea. To do so would be a crime against my own heart. How can I possibly come between these women?”

Asterly mumbled something into his bourbon which sounded peculiarly like “ _ Very well, I'd imagine. _ ”

The little Duke was gazing at her with open curiosity. “Lord, you have caught yourself in a bit of a snarl, haven't you...”

“His Grace, your mate, was a known philanderer, pardon my saying,” she replied, her cheeks hot with blood, “but when he found you, he became a faithful and dutiful husband. What I am asking for is only the secret to such a transformation. I cannot live with myself as a specter of my faithless father...I cannot abide by this legacy. I must know—how do I proceed? How do I remain constant? How do I find joy in Miss Stone when I know that her friend will be near at hand to tempt me?”

Asterly responded then, his eyes filled with a glimmering amusement. “Don't choose.”

“Pardon?”

“ _ Don't. Choose. _ Straffton, you are creating for yourself a torture that is by your own hand. Do not choose between two women. Do not treat them as though they themselves do not have agency. They speak when you are not present, they have their own ideas about you that they impart to each other and whisper about together. You likely could not come between them if you tried.”

The Omega nodded resolutely. “I agree. It is best that you simply do not choose between them.”

Alex sighed heavily. “Then your advice is to abandon the pursuit.”

There was a laugh from the both of them and then the little one spoke again. “No, no, Miss Straffton, you misunderstand. What we suggest is the opposite.”

Asterly finished the thought, “Pursue them  _ both _ .”

She sat silent for a time, staring between the both of them as though they had just told her that the moon was made of cheese and that some sod of a man had somehow bitten a chunk straight from its face. She passed her eyes between one and the other searching for anything that was not genuine. But the strawberry blonde Omega with darling gray eyes and a mild little countenance could probably never lie to her—at least not about matters like this. She had never even before met him and she could tell only from his face that he was as serious as the grave. He truly meant for her to court  _ both _ girls.

Her own voice sounded far away to her ears. “You cannot mean this. What sort of disaster might be wrought by my own hand for such a course?”

The little one shrugged. “You cannot know. But likely in this case, the damage may be confined to your own heart rather than theirs. If they take issue with your seeking to court them both then they will  _ both _ refuse you and their friendship will remain intact. My only suggestion to you is that you remain as open about your relationship with the both of them as possible—they cannot think you are being secretive or they will perceive you as dishonest.”

“But what of the time when one of them wishes to marry?”

“Do you like them both?”

“Well...yes...”

Asterly interjected. “But you have a favorite. The Beta.”

“Yes...”

The mates looked at each other, Asterly down and his Omega upward before they both again stared at her, their synchronization in the movement even more unsettling than their unspoken words.

Asterly scratched his head. “They will choose. You'll have no say.”

Her heart beat hard. “And if they choose poorly?”

“So be it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I should play a drinking game where I take a shot every time "Asterly" is in italics in my stories. I'm still reeling from however many comments I've gotten last time and on _The Flesh and the Spirit_ but truly: do bury me in them. I so enjoy them it would be a grand way to go.


	9. Chapter 9

Miss Straffton seemed very much a careful creature upon the next time Olivia came in contact with her. She was polite and kind and every bit the Alpha her stature suggested. But still, she was interested and this was good. Olivia was demurely sitting upon a blanket in the park with Hannah by her side and Miles snoozing in his chair nearby when she saw Miss Straffton riding along with Rainton, her posture in the saddle something the Beta thought she might consider later in her late night reflections. She did, after all, like the way her body moved with the steps of a well-trained horse. The woman similarly spotted her and removed herself from Rainton's company to dismount and approach, her riding boots shiny and her clothes remarkably unruffled.

She bowed low. “Lady Olivia, Lady Whelton...” she paused when she noted that Miles was sound asleep.

Hannah saved her dutifully. “Do not mind him, Miss Straffton, you may introduce yourself when he wakes...if he does. He had a rather late night and the sun's warmth lulls him easily.” She put her hand over her round tummy that was hidden by the cut of her gown and she smiled upwards at their guest. “Please. Sit. Join us. I've heard you've taken an eye toward Florence Stone. She's a beautiful girl.”

Olivia gave Hannah a glance that she hoped conveyed her willingness to let that particular subject go.

Straffton, however, was undaunted. “Yes. I had given her a courting gift. She's very...peculiar. I think I like that about her.” She sat, her brows a little furrowed when she cast her glance to Olivia. “I think her friendship with those she is not expected to be friendly toward makes her a fine example of a woman worth her weight in gold.”

Olivia felt her lips purse.

Hannah pulled out her fan. The sun wasn't overly warm but her sister had gained a shine over her skin and her Beta scent was more full and robust this day, hints of discomfort fading in and out of it. That was fairly normal for her in the later days of pregnancy so despite Olivia's delicate fretting, Hannah ignored it rather soundly. She sounded a little breathless when she spoke again. “You know, I am surprised. I might have thought her pace to be something of an issue. Omegas are...” she seemed to lose her train of thought suddenly, her fan stopping as she gave a small gasp.

“Hannah?” Olivia asked softly.

“It's nothing,” she replied, fanning herself a little harder.

Miss Straffton was eying her curiously. “I think, my Lady, that there is something to be said about keeping a girl on her toes. For Miss Stone and I, the task is set for both of us.”

Olivia regarded her easily. “You would do well to make certain that she does not take you too much by surprise. She will lord it over you for the rest of your days.”

“Is that what she does with you?”

Olivia felt her mouth turn dry and she was stunned into silence for a moment before her mind reminded her that there was no manner in which the woman could have known anything about she or Florence. She was not speaking of romance—she was speaking of elements of their friendship. She sighed at herself. “We are very close friends, Miss Straffton, she can hardly surprise me anymore. It is, sometimes, as though we are of the same mind. Tell me, have you had a friend so close before?”

“Regrettably, I haven't.” She rubbed at her chin, her sharp eyes focused on Hannah's fan. “I think I was presented with plenty of possibilities at a younger age but when one has such a background as mine—”

“I am curious as to that very subject,” Olivia replied softly.

“Oh? Well...there is not much to say of it.” Her scent shifted toward discomfort, a more telling scent than Hannah's. “My father was from Italy and my mother from a somewhat wealthy family in the north of Yorkshire near the coast. There's a small fishing village there and I managed to collect a bit of land. It doesn't lend itself toward many friendships.”

“I suppose it wouldn't if you were busy between two places like I imagine.”

Straffton blinked and then looked off toward the other passersby in the park, her scent vexed but still dignified. “I was...in many ways fortunate and in many other ways less so. Italy was...enlightening for me. But not particularly in any fashion towards my betterment. I much prefer England...and English women, if you don't mind my frankness.”

“Not at all.” She reached down and picked out a small plum and ate it, trying to distract herself from Straffton's somewhat attractive scent. Had it been so attractive before? “I suppose that English women might have some qualities that might make them more palatable to some.”

Hannah cleared her throat. “I do recall that you've a preference toward more the more mild feminine manners.” She flicked her eyes to Olivia meaningfully. “It is a wonder then, how you ever set your eyes upon Miss Stone.”

 _Hannah do be a dear,_ Olivia thought sharply, _and shut up about Florence._

Miss Straffton took the comment in stride. “I believe Florence and I have very much the same values. I say this only due to her distinct ability to attract friendships with so kindhearted of women. Coming from a background in which friendships were scarce, I have come to find them to be somewhat of a necessity when of a particular quality.”

Olivia stared at her, her mouth tight. “What...what um...particular _quality_ do you mean, Miss Straffton?”

“Only that which could last a lifetime, my Lady.”

Before she could inquire again as to which particular quality this was, she felt Hannah's hand upon hers and she turned her head to peer at her sister.

The older Beta's hair that had escaped from her coiffure was sticking to her neck and to her temples and her eyes were deceptively calm when she said softly and deliberately, “Olivia, I need you to ring the bell for Burton.”

Her heart was squeezing in her chest and she did as she always did when Hannah gave her a frank direction—she obeyed it. She turned and reached for the arm of Miles' chair, swatting the bell that hung from it so that it rang out clearly through the still air. This caused the poor Viscount to jerk awake, his confusion complete at the sight of Olivia awkwardly peering up at him.

“I say...” Miles blurted, rubbing at his bleary eyes. “Did I doze off again?”

“Darling,” Hannah stated softly, her hand still upon her belly, “do not be alarmed, Burton will be with us shortly. I do apologize to you Miss Straffton, for I will have to cut this short, I'm afraid.”

The Alpha stood as Burton approached, his expression serious but curious. “Is there something I can do, my Lady?”

“Yes. Burton will have to take care of Miles and his chair but I am another matter entirely. If I could implore you, Alpha, might you help me to the carriage? I think my knees will give out if I try it myself...”

Straffton was frowning, her scent wild and confused. “Gracious, I should ask what in the world has happened...”

Miles cleared his throat, still blinking off his sleep. He provided helpfully, “I believe we're having another pup, Miss Straffton. Good to see you again, by the way. You're welcome to come to the house with us if you weren't finished chatting with our dear Olivia—I've nothing to do after all but sit in a parlor and wait. It would be a decent distraction.”

“I...I...” She drew up, nervousness flooding her powerful scent while she raised her hands, clearly uncertain as to her course.

Olivia stood then. “Alpha, might you take her other arm and we can both help?” Clearly, the woman had never been in this particular scenario before—though neither had Olivia. Her heart was racing and she wasn't sure at all how Miles wasn't much more anxious. He seemed delightfully calm despite all of  _this_ and she nearly wanted to prod him if only to know if he were _really_ awake. She waited until Miss Straffton had gently taken Hannah's other arm and then the both of them helped her stand on her unsteady feet. While Burton expertly took care of Miles and the chair, the both of them managed to lead her to the carriage, wobbly but otherwise alright.

“Oh dear,” Hannah fretted once she was sitting down. “I feel just terrible for cutting this off. Alpha, you simply must come to the house for your troubles. I'll have tea brought to you and Miles can sit with you and—”

“Dearest,” Miles interrupted gently, putting his hand out to her knee. “you'll worry yourself into a fit.”

“Say you'll come, Miss Straffton,” she implored, her light brown eyes pleading. Olivia similarly peered up at her, hoping very much that she would acquiesce.

“Well...” It was Olivia's gaze that did it. “Alright then. If only to make certain that you'll come out alright. Not that there's much I could do about it.”

Olivia rode with Hannah and Miles but kept her eyes to their companion who rode behind them on her horse. It was difficult to keep her eyes from straying to Straffton's rather shapely thighs, her legs quite distracting if the Beta was being honest with herself. It was really no wonder that men often kept women under wraps and kept them from showing even a bit of their ankles—though Olivia wasn't driven to distraction _easily_ , she thought. It was only when something became a possibility that she leaned toward such fantasies.

This Alpha's hands on her. This Alpha's eyes hungrily staring at her. This Alpha's mouth between her legs...

Hannah, despite her discomfort, leaned forward to speak lowly in conspiracy. “You like her.”

She pulled out her fan and dispelled her scent quickly into the open air. “She's courting Florence.”

“Yes, yes, but _you_ like her.”

“But Hannah—”

“Why don't you make yourself more... _available_ to her? You let Florence have the run-around all she likes but what about _you?_ ”

“What can you mean by such a question?” she asked, feeling a little testy.

“Omegas have _all_ the fun, do they not?” She turned her attention to Miles. “Miles, you must do Olivia a favor. When you're all settled in and there is no one about who can chaperone, you must pretend that you need to relieve yourself.”

“I daresay I won't have to pretend,” Miles mumbled more to himself.

“Hannah you cannot do such a thing,” she chided, her cheeks heating up. Taking liberties with an Alpha was much different than taking liberties with Florence. Then again, she thought curiously, was it really? She flicked her eyes back to where Straffton sat upon her horse, her body moving with every sway of the powerful animal. She did like the look of her...and Florence most certainly approved. What harm could there be in catching an Alpha like her alone? What harm could there come from a moment or two in a private parlor? Olivia's face was growing hotter. She couldn't imagine doing what Florence might have done in such a scenario—kissing? Gracious, she barely knew the woman. But again, perhaps that was part of the thrill.

Hannah let out a low chuckle. “It is only that you are my sister that I am able to read you so well, thank goodness. If Alphas outside our family could see your face just now they would know that all Idlewinds are very much the same.”

She frowned at her sister. “They know that anyway. Do not be crude, Hannah. I won't be kissing—”

She gasped, her mouth turning to a sly grin. “Who said anything about _kissing_ , Olivia? Oh dear, you really do like her. Miles do make certain not to come back unless you're certain they've finished _kissing._ ”

Oh she could have given Hannah a good whap over the head with her fan. Likely she could have done it too had the woman not been in labor and her husband sitting next to her.

Miles' cheeks were somewhat flushed, his curious eyes set upon Olivia. “I don't have to leave you alone. Your sister is a demon, as we both know.”

She sighed heavily. “Nothing untoward is going to happen, my Lord. You can relieve yourself. I am not going to lure an Alpha away from my best friend.” _Though that is exactly what I am doing._ “She is a very noble creature, no doubt she could not be shifted even if I were to try.”

Hannah sighed before she grimaced with a labor pain. Miles patted her hand sympathetically and that was the end of that—at least until they were at the house. Hannah was shuffled up the stairs by the servants and Miles, Olivia, and Miss Straffton were ushered into an out-of-the-way parlor where they could take their tea. Of coures, after the tea was delivered, the inevitable occurred and Miles begged pardon but he simply had to go relieve himself.

“Pardon my rudeness,” the Alpha supplied, “but I say, if I have this tea I will simply burst. Now don't move from your spots or I'll think the worst.” He wheeled himself out then, the distress in his expression too real to be pretend in the least.

Olivia looked at Miss Straffton where she stood by the mantle. “Well. I think I might be out one chaperone for the rest of my time in London.”

“Hmm?” the Alpha replied distractedly, her eyes clearly upon Olivia but her mind somewhere completely different.

“My chaperone. I think I've lost her.”

“Oh. Oh! Well...I'm certain there will be another, do you not think? An aunt perhaps?”

She thought of Aunt Ellen and wondered just where in the hell that woman was for most of the time Hannah and Miles had been kissing in parlors. “Miss Straffton, the other night at the party...you didn't seem interested in Florence at all.”

“I...well I...”

She waited patiently, shocked when she heard the answer.

“The fact of the matter is, my Lady, I had not before laid eyes upon _you._ ” Her nervous scent was beginning to fill the room. “I hope you do not discover me to be a cad when I tell you this. I...I have never once considered that I would find a woman so captivating as you are. I really do like Florence...”

“Enough to marry her?”

She appeared speechless, her mouth held open and her eyes shocked. “I...my Lady...I...”

“I've flustered you. I apologize. Florence and I are...” _Lovers_. “...very close.”

“Yes I know. I've no intention of coming between you.”

She stood from the settee, startling the Alpha greatly when she did so. “I think you'll find my behavior to be quite puzzling indeed.” In fact, Olivia herself found her own behavior to be quite puzzling indeed. Especially when she closed the distance between herself and the Alpha quickly. _Oh dear. I'm to make a liar out of myself today._ _Where is my head? Where is my heart but in Florence Stone's hand?_ She barely had to look upward to stare the woman in the eye and so it was even easier to lean forward and close her eyes and press a clumsy kiss upon the Alpha's lips. She didn't let it linger, merely placed it and drew back, opening her eyes in a very matter-of-fact manner and nodding to herself as the surprised Alpha gaped.

Straffton's voice was a tad winded. “Lady Olivia...what—”

She didn't let her finish. She took her face between her hands and pressed another, more insistent kiss upon her lips. When she pulled from that one, she furrowed her brow and stated calmly, “Listen to me Alpha. If you like Florence then you may like me. If you do not like Florence...that is, if you do not like her enough to marry her—then you can forget about liking me.”

There was no Alpha in all of London who could have been more mired by confusion than this one at this very moment. Olivia couldn't blame her. She was caught between two women and she was much too decent for what they asked of her. But Straffton blinked and then blinked again and then looked at Olivia as if there was something quite profound about her. “I cannot even hope to understand what you might mean by any of this.”

“Don't try,” she pleaded softly.

“Why did you kiss me?”

Her cheeks felt hot again. “I...well I think you're very handsome. And I beg you not to think me free with my affections. It is only that you have a certain quality about you that I find attractive. Does a woman really need to explain such a whim?”

The Alpha's hand came to her face and her fingers brushed against Olivia's cheek softly as she leaned forward. “No...I suppose I would not have asked had you been Florence Stone. I would have thought it very apt. I should not have asked at all... Would you...do it again?”

“Should you like another? I have many.”

There was a spice to Straffton's scent that caused a gentle tingle between Olivia's thighs, dampening her drawers the way Florence's arousal often did. “I think, Lady Olivia, that I would like as many as you are willing to bestow.”

She kissed her again but this time she did not draw away. She kissed her like she kissed Florence—with delicacy and intent. She eased into her and let her body come close enough so that her bodice could brush against the front of Straffton's waistcoat and she could feel the heat radiating from the Alpha's form. It was a satisfying kiss—more than satisfying, actually, she corrected. It sent a very odd shiver through her, a shock that sent blood and arousal rushing between her legs and swelling her very much in the same fashion as when she and Florence were rolling about together.

_Well this is somewhat unexpected._

“ _Mmm..._ ” the Alpha groaned, pleading with a gentle probing tongue for entrance which Olivia gave readily. Whatever sort of wanton Straffton might have thought she was, Olivia was fully willing to concede to the imagining and certainly she was doing a decent job of attracting this particular specimen. Straffton's scent was spiced and tangy, her hands touching Olivia upon her cheek and her elbow—very acceptable spots upon her, the Beta had to admit. Quite gentlemanly indeed. The kiss, though deep, was soft and feminine, the brush of the Alpha's tongue nearly causing her to become dizzy with her lust.

It came to a natural end and Olivia found that the hand upon her cheek had moved to her jaw, pleading with her to bend just so to expose her throat. She did so easily, feeling rather naked when she did so and feeling doubly naked when she felt the gentle touch of the Alpha's nose and the bow of her upper lip playing against the sensitive flesh over her pulse.

“ _Lady Olivia,_ ” she breathed softly. “ _You are...divine..._ ”

“Have you...have you scented Florence?”

She gave pause for a moment. “...No...”

“Oh...well um...she is very sweet.”

Straffton gently let her go, allowing her to straighten herself out while she leveled a rather vexed expression upon her. “Perhaps...perhaps you take your place upon the settee before his Lordship returns and I am set out upon my ear.”

“Have I angered you?”

“You have...unsettled me. I know not what to think of this.”

She reached out, touching the Alpha's hand. “I am clumsy with my intent. Please, Alpha...do not let me frighten you.”

Straffton regarded her warily but beneath that Olivia could see a well of warmth within her—perhaps this was not to be so difficult. That was...if only she could stop being so damnably ham-fisted about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank god these two have Florence or they'd never get around to saying anything useful. <3


	10. Chapter 10

Alex had once sworn that she would never do anything remotely like this. But how could she resist something when her very blood screamed for her to indulge? It had been several since that first perfect kiss with Lady Olivia and to her own chagrin she had indulged against her better judgment the very next day not with Olivia but with _Miss Stone_.

It was a rather secluded little picnic they were having with Simon about with them as chaperone, but of course Simon had been imbibing perhaps a little bit too much of the wine and he had begged off to return to the house to take care of his necessaries when Florence had taken to her usual flirtations. It was too much for Alex's resolve and their kiss had begun innocently enough, she supposed—not that kisses could ever truly be innocent in nature. Not with Florence Stone, anyway.

She was sweet. Lady Olivia had not lied about that. There was a perfect draw to that sweetness that made her particularly delicious when she took to Alex's lips and begged her to open her mouth to let that disturbingly knowing tongue explore within. It was as though Florence had kissed a thousand times before and knew exactly what it was that would make Alex's nerves tingle with excitement. As though she were a calm and inviting seductress—the soul of someone's mistress who had found her way into the body and mind of a young, sweet Omega.

“ _Touch me_ ,” Florence had begged, placing Alex's hand over the soft, exposed area of her shoulder, urging her to slip the sleeve of her gown down so that one breast might bare itself to the afternoon light.

“ _I shouldn't..._ ” she had whispered into the girl's mouth, her hand still against the impossible softness of her shoulder.

“ _I don't mind._ ”

That moment haunted her. She had spent nights frowning at herself for how she had further kissed the girl to keep her from insisting upon undressing. Simon had taken far too long in his task and had left them alone enough for many unsavory acts to have occurred. She could have fully deflowered the girl—rucked up her gown and come between her legs. Still, she hadn't even done what Florence had wished for. She had taken her hands away from the temptation and had merely held her jaw while she kissed her and while she placed her nose gently over the place where her scent was strongest.

_The sweep of the stars in a dark blanket above as the moon shone over lonely fields of a thousand wildflowers. The first touch of hot breath over her belly. Salty and sweet caramel dribbled in a teasing array over delicate little cakes. Holding breaths in while a lover kisses over one's throat reverently._

Florence Stone's scent was equal to that of Lady Olivia Idlewind's, the Beta's having lingered in her nose and in her mind as a specter she could not live without.

_A hot bath and the gentle sensation of bubbles over one's chin. A breeze in through a window which pleasantly chilled when the day was overly hot and the room was overly stuffy. New autumn, new summer, new spring, and new, crisp winter all rolled up into one soft scent. The taste and bite of spiced cakes over her tongue, and the unrelenting joy of finding a solitary star to wish upon on a cold clear night in December._

Now, it seemed, as though their scents and the memories that they invoked were tangled up in her mind. As though the women so often smelled of each other that Alex could no longer consider one without the other.

_Breath that was cool rather than hot. A solitary star in a blanket of night over a meadow of flowers dusted by a sweet and loving snow. Salty sweet caramel dribbled over spiced cakes..._

She huffed at herself while she contemplated her issue. She had kissed them both. She had scented them both. She had fantasized about them _both_. She had taken the Dukes' advice to heart and she had continued to see the both of them for several weeks and she was no closer to finding a solution in her own heart. She had kissed Miss Stone _twice_ and had kissed Lady Olivia at the very least three times, finding them both to have had quite differing temperaments and yet—yet! She could not draw the idea of them apart. How could she live with just _one?_

 _Of course,_ she thought madly, _if I were to marry little Miss Stone, then she would surely still have her meek and mild friend doting upon her, would she not? Could I not simply use my wiles to seduce Lady Olivia, by the by?_

She was sitting in her parlor again and she could feel the presence of Russo as he entered, the man looking to her with a nervous scent wafting through her own burning one. He was anxious over her chagrin and even more so when she stood up suddenly with her hands to her face. “Gods! Russo!”

“Y-Yes, my Lady?”

“ _I cannot think! Dio santo, Russo! The Devil take English women!_ ”

He let out a singular sniff that she thought probably stemmed from his amusement and then sighed. “ _Contessa_...you are a troubled woman. But this is a good trouble to have.” He nodded sagely. “Imagine, you had thought that women of this country were indifferent to you...now you have two beautiful girls who wish to marry you. Even one of them a Lady.” He waggled a finger at her with humor suddenly in his eyes. “Perhaps, my Lady. You marry one of them in England...and you marry the other in Italy.”

“That's preposterous, Russo...though,” she gave him a sly stare as she dropped her hands from her head, “you are a madman for suggesting it and I applaud your gall. No...I've simply got to marry one of them before they both leave me to...to you know...eschew the conventions of a proper marriage. They seem the type to do so, do they not?”

“Then which will you choose?”

She whirled away from him, one of her hands again coming to her forehead to pinch at the sides. “Gods, man...I don't know! My father has truly lived on within me. I can feel the wolf in my blood howling to make a fool of me. No matter what I choose, I will destroy myself in the chase for pleasure despite my convictions. But how can I have such convictions in the face of these women who will tempt me by every turn? Lady Olivia's vexing statement that I should not pursue her should I not fall in love with her companion—it unnerves me. It vexes me. What could she mean to prolong these temptations? What could she mean to allow for my hideous lust and even encourage its prevalence?” She wilted onto the settee, her knees feeling weak. “I feel as though I am some pawn in a game of cat and mouse between them in which I am neither the cat nor the mouse but perhaps the vase that is broken in the pursuit.”

Russo poured a glass of amber liquor from the decanter and Alex put her hand out for it only to find that the man was staring off into nothing while thinking of her conflict and drinking it himself. “My Lady,” he replied almost absentmindedly, “I think you are not seeing the whole of the picture.”

She let her hand that was out for the liquor flop down at her side. “What do you mean?”

“I am of the mind that perhaps you are the mouse.”

“Am I? Then which of them is the cat?”

He finally looked at her, his eyes black in the firelight. “There are two cats.”

Alex narrowed her eyes at him, her mind floating back to her conversation with the two Dukes. She didn't have a difficult time imagining that this was the truth but she did take issue with how in the world such a motive was advantageous for either woman. She stared into the fire and put her feet as far out in front of her as she could. “Russo...you were my father's valet.”

“I was.”

“How did he...how did he explain it? How did he bed so many women and leave my mother so wanting for his affections? How did he sleep at night?”

“I often wonder if he slept at all...” Russo muttered. “Your father was...a man of varying taste. He was a man who did not know what he wanted. I know you have his whispers within you. You are much like him.”

“That is not something I wished for.”

“I know...I know...but you are his heir in all ways, my Lady.” He looked at the drink in his hand and then put it down suddenly, taking up another glass as if just now recalling that he was the servant and she was the nobility. He filled a glass for her and brought it to her before he brushed himself off and stood straight, his arms behind his back. “Your father...he was a very permissive man. I apologize.”

“Russo...” she chuckled. “You can have your drink.”

“Thank you, my Lady. Perhaps...you will permit me to give to you some advice.”

She stared at the golden pool in her glass. “What is that advice, Russo?”

“Your sire was a man of the world and you are a woman of that same wanderlust...you cannot seek to avoid that which calls to you like sirens upon the sea. If the sirens, they call...” he shrugged one shoulder, “...you do not choose which one devours you.”

The Alpha made to stand, taking her liquor with her. “The carriage, Russo. I know the hour is late but I will call upon the Idlewind estate. The coach, if you please. Take your drink with you. I'll not have you wandering about in an incomplete fugue.”

The man picked up his glass and peered down into it then, weighing her words. “Yes, my Lady.”

In fact, she took the last swig of her own drink moments before the door to the coach was opened and she left the empty vessel on the wooden seat before she debarked, sauntering up the stone steps of the Idlewind townhouse. She was welcomed into the foyer and casually led into a front parlor where she found the Omega Earl sitting alone, his legs crossed and a paper in his hands which he put down at her entrance.

“Miss Straffton,” he greeted pleasantly. He waited for her to finish her bow before he bade her to sit. “Please, sit. I am...I am uncertain as to Lady Olivia's availability this evening. Perhaps if you were to call during...”

“This is of grave importance.”

His crystal eyes shone with curiosity as he regarded her, taking note that she was still standing despite his invitation to sit, no doubt. “You know...I have been curious as to how you and the young Lady have been getting on.”

Alex felt sweat beginning to break out at her hairline and she swallowed, finding a lump in her throat. “I intend to ask her to be my w-wife.” She swallowed again, reverting her eyes to the Earl's shoes instead of his piercing gaze.

“Tonight?”

She nodded, pacing a bit toward the hearth and then back toward the door, considering bolting instead of explaining herself. His scent was sweet and curious and she could not deny him this...not with such clarity in his eyes. Surely he expected to have to approve of her somehow, though she had not anticipated such a thing from Netherfield's mate rather than she herself. “I am of the hope that she has developed affection enough for this gesture, my Lord.”

“Is she not in competition with another girl for _your_ affections, Miss Straffton?”

She took in a swooping breath. “Their own friendship must bear the weight of my proposal, it is true.”

“Bear the weight,” Lord Netherfield mused, the Omega clearly tickled by the thought. “Perhaps I will defy convention, Miss Straffton, and allow you to intrude upon Lady Olivia's privacy tonight. But only if you should swear on your honor that no matter your judgment here on this night, you will not speak of the events you may witness.”

She regarded him warily, her mouth somewhat open and her brow furrowed. “I...I beg pardon?”

He placed his hands in his lap and laced his fingers, his expression clearly bemused. “Your honor, Miss Straffton. I would have you swear.”

“I...I swear then, though I know not what I should expect to see.”

“Oh...likely just about anything. Or _everything_. I do hope your proposal does not suffer for it but I cannot say one way or t'other.”

With uncertain movements, she made her way to the door, faltering when she heard his voice again.

“Please, Miss Straffton. Your honor.”

“On my honor, my Lord. I swear.”

He sighed, as though relieved, and let her go with a brief description of where she might find the girl's room.

When she found the door that led to the girl's chamber, she thought that perhaps she might knock at the first. Had the servant alerted her to the Alpha's presence in the house? Had she been told at all that a woman might be here to ask for her hand? She could smell the crisp winter of Olivia and with it, the sweet moonlight of Miss Stone, the two scents unmistakable and inseparable. Her hand moved to knock upon the warm wood of the door before she paused and swept her fingers over the handle.

_What am I doing? Am I really that drunk to burst into a woman's chamber without thought to her privacy? Am I so bold as to see her in her boudoir as natural as she could be? Perhaps she is naked, reclining upon the bed and reading to herself with one fingernail delicately placed against her teeth. Perhaps she is curled among her pillows, softly asleep and lost to dream. Perhaps...perhaps..._

There were no more thoughts of what _might_ have been the scene before her when she turned the handle and softly swept open the portal. The act of doing so did not alert the occupants of the chamber to her presence and thus allowed her an unrestricted revelation so consuming she could feel the tendrils of it enshrouding her very soul. She had thought, _perhaps_ , that she might find Miss Stone or even only some of Miss Stone's effects inside the room but she had not considered that she might find the girl poised in such a manner that would offend her sensibilities so greatly as to cause her utter shock. This, as it was, was what ensued, as Miss Florence Stone was entirely nude, her small, perfect breasts lit temptingly by the firelight and her honey hair alight with that very glow, transforming her into a pale and brilliant seductress.

But it was not truly just this that caused Alex distress—it was that this intensely beautiful creature was knelt in a full tub of steaming water, her hair pulled up above her head to reveal her pure and pale little throat and neck and between her knees— _dio santo!!!_ Between her knees lay the beautiful and equally as naked Lady Olivia Idlewind whose back was too the door and who guilelessly reached upward to gently brush at Miss Stone's hips and waist. At such a gesture, the Omega leaned forward and gracefully claimed her lover's lips and there was naught to be heard but the gentle and erotic meeting of their mouths and the sweet sounds of water shifting as they came together within.

Alex's heart was pounding, half with a rampant lust and half with the fury of a formless betrayal. She felt like a fool. She felt like a _damned fool._ Neither of these fair creatures had ever once actually needed, nor wanted an Alpha. The concern that she could come between them—make them jealous of each other...what a farce! What a wretch she'd been!

It was not in her nature to be cold and so she felt so hot standing like a petrified man in the lair of a gorgon, that she thought she could burst into flame. At once she wished to flee the house, to never show her face in the whole of London again but then she wished for nothing more than to pluck these girls from their intimate embrace and take them both recklessly upon the nearby bed. She cared not for how soaked the bedding might become with the water that clung to their naked flesh—she merely wished to have them shining in the firelight beneath her, squealing in contrived reluctance as she kissed them and sucked at them and rutted them both until they begged her desperately for relief.

 _Too much drink tonight, Alex,_ she thought, the voice in her head startling her a little as a break from the perpetual movement of images in her mind.

“ _Darling..._ ” came a whisper between kisses from the tub, further shocking Alex out of her reverie and causing her to refocus her eyes upon the lovers who embraced therein. It was in this moment, that Miss Stone's eyes came over Olivia's shoulder and found her standing in the open doorway. The Omega froze for a moment, her eyes widening into huge pools of surprise. It didn't last long and in a manner that was very much like Florence Stone, she allowed her body to relax and her gaze was suddenly no longer altered by shock but heavy-lidded in a knowing temptation.

_The gaze of a woman who knows what she wants. Brutal. Savage. Vicious and lustful in turns._

Alex swallowed and opened her mouth as though she were to speak but as her eyes again found the auburn of Olivia's hair, she closed it again. She could not bear to find that shock in those cinnamon eyes. She could not face that this beautiful, mild, Beta girl would find that this Alpha must reject her for this infidelity. She could not accept that her Lady Olivia...her Beta...the wife of her heart, could have willfully deceived her and yet here she was fearing that she might have to explain that this was the cause for her departure.

The Alpha took a step backward and then another in a reluctant retreat that surely must have puzzled the tempestuous Omega who had begged her in a glance to come hither. She left the door ajar and turned, tapping her way down the hall and then the stairs to the foyer where she found Lord Netherfield leaning in the archway to the parlor with a sherry in his hand, his eyes concerned and imploring.

“So soon, Alpha?”

She looked at him but could not address him, the lump in her throat barring any sort of communication. In a flash, she was outside and she had alighted into her coach, banging the top of it to signal for the driver to return home, the image of the girls in the tub forever branded into her memory.

 _To the Devil with English women,_ she thought, tears stinging the backs of her eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **IMPORTANT NOTE: I am on vacation from now until September 9th.**
> 
>  
> 
> I've made this post early in anticipation of this fact. If you want to be able to read the updates of Tarantella that will be coming out while I am on vacation, you'll have to take that up with the link in my [Twitter Bio.](https://twitter.com/actualadultjd) ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)


	11. Chapter 11

Florence was puzzled. More than puzzled. Olivia was begging for another kiss and Florence couldn't help but be distracted from it by the moment that had just passed between herself and the Alpha who had come to the door. The woman hadn't knocked—so how in the world could she have been surprised by what she had found? Wouldn't she have known what she was to find? Did they not give enough hints to her that there was an inkling in her mind as to the implications of a marriage to one of them? Obviously they were dealing with a stubborn, righteous Alpha and naught could really be done for it now—it was only for them to pick up the pieces and storm the Bastille.

She put her hands to the lip of the tub on either side of her Beta lover and pushed herself up to her knees again, the sight of Olivia staring at the way the water rippled down over her flesh almost enough to make her forget about the crusade she was about to begin. But not quite enough.

“Olivia, my darling, we've a problem.”

The Beta was laying on her back and appeared so deliriously content that her eyes were even half-closed and her body in a languid state beneath the hot, scented water. “Mmm...I could never have a problem with you, my love.”

“Not with me, you beautiful girl...we've had a visitor and she did not take kindly to having seen us together despite her rudeness at intruding. My love...for this one moment, we forgot to lock the door.”

Olivia's eyes snapped all the way open and she sat up suddenly, nearly causing Florence to wobble right out of the tub. “What?!”

“Our beautiful Alexandra, you see...”

“ _What?!_ ”

Florence reached forward and petted her hair with both hands. “Shhh, everything will be fine. We simply must get out of the tub, get ourselves all dried off and dressed, and—”

“And beg Hannah for forgiveness! My god, Florence! We're to be outed to society! We're to find ourselves outcasts, our families ridiculed to the end of our days! And by a woman I've fancied myself falling in love with!” There were tears in her eyes.

“Falling in love with? You...you didn't...”

She tugged at Florence's hips. “Do not think for a moment I have lost any love for you, my Omega, it is only that she was so lovely and so sweet...but now! Now she will tell all of the ton about us and we'll be tossed aside and shamed and Chastity will have no hope of marriage! Even the Neverells might forbid poor Quinn from a marriage with our dearest Theodore and then what will we have left? My family will hate me and I'll be lost! Florence! _What can we do?!_ ”

“Gods, woman, you could drive me to the brink with such nonsense. The first thing we do is get out of the tub. You're splashing about and getting water all over the carpet. I am the Omega here, I am the one who should be out of sorts with her passionate ravings. Miss Straffton will certainly not be shouting o'er the mountains _tonight_  about our indiscretions or our relationship. We will simply have to develop a plan of attack.”

“ _Attack?!_ ”

“Something like that. We will storm into her house and—”

“Florence you are much too brash.” She moved and forced the girl to get out of the tub, her naked body dripping all over the carpet before she pulled a drying sheet to her body and rubbed it over herself. “We've got to speak to Hannah. Hannah will know what to do.”

“You're going to tell your sister about us?”

“Of course I am. I'm going to tell her everything.”

Florence blinked. “Everything?”

“ _Everything_.”

The Omega moved about, drying her own self off before she began to put on the simple dress she had arrived in, peering into the glass to make certain her hair wasn't overly messy before she began to help Olivia into her own clothes. “Do you think that's a wise choice? To tell your sister about our wicked plans and...well about you and I?”

“Do I think it a wise choice? Well perhaps I don't but what else is there to do? Hannah is the one I trust the most with such information and she's married to a Viscount.”

“Your other sister is an Earl.”

“And an Alpha. She won't understand.” She chewed her lip then and Florence could tell she didn't know for certain if she believed that. Perhaps the Alpha _would_ have understood...eventually. “Come, does my hair look alright?”

“You look beautiful.”

“But my hair.”

She giggled softly. “Your hair is lovely.” Olivia took her hand and she let herself be guided down the hall to Lord Whelton's chambers, their knock answered directly by a very curious-looking Burton.

“Burton,” Olivia greeted, “could you tell my sister I need her?”

“You are welcome to come in, my Lady, his lordship is dozing and Lady Whelton—”

“It is a matter of some sensitivity, Burton.”

“Oh. Well in that case...I will fetch her. Perhaps you will take refuge in the pink parlor? I will bring up some tea?”

“Grand,” she replied, her voice shaking.

While they retreated, Florence spoke. “Love, it's going to be alright. She's not going to be angry with you. I do not know if your sister can even become angry.”

“I've seen her angry,” Olivia replied, “when I borrowed her dressed and spilled juice all over it.”

“Juice? How old were you?”

“Eight...”

She rolled her eyes hard, surprised they didn't fall out of her skull. With a delicate chuckle, she entered the pink parlor and settled the Beta down on the comfiest of the settees and leaned over her to kiss her forehead. “I can guarantee you, your sister has grown out of that sort of anger. Hannah is a lovely soul as are the rest of you. She couldn't possibly disown you.”

“For bringing shame upon the whole of our family? For ruining Chastity's chances of finding a decent marriage? Oh I beg to differ.”

As though on cue, Lady Whelton emerged from the doorway in her dressing gown, her long auburn hair swept into a loose braid over her shoulder and her brand new pup nursing at her breast. “If anyone is to ruin Chastity's chances at a decent marriage, it will be _Chastity_ ,” she stated dryly as she wandered in, “Now what in the world could the both of you be up in arms about so late in the evening?”

Florence stood straight and was alarmed when Olivia stood suddenly next to her, nearly knocking her over.

“Hannah, Florence and I are lovers.”

Hannah wasn't looking at them, gently adjusting her dressing gown so that the silk edge was not tickling her baby's face while he suckled. She didn't address them but cooed to him softly.

“Hannah, did you hear me?”

“Of course I heard you, dear, you're being quite loud.”

Florence chanced a glance toward Olivia who did the same to her before they both stared back at Lady Whelton where she stood with her pup.

After a pause, the Lady continued, “You know, if you've any other secrets in the future, perhaps you'd do well to ask someone advice on how to keep them better. I don't know a soul in this family who doesn't know of your affections for each other. Though I was a little confused by your pursuit of Miss Straffton, I supposed you both had good reason.”

Florence sighed, both relieved and a mite irritated, “Well, my Lady, Miss Straffton is what we've come to you about. You see, she knows...and I daresay she's not quite as accepting as you are in this matter. She's seen us together and it's but a matter of time before we've scandalized two families with this affair.”

“Poppycock.”

“Poppycock?” Florence repeated, incredulous.

“That's right. Miss Straffton is enamored of you. Of both of you. If you two don't think I've known of every time you've been kissed by that Alpha, you're insane. She's tortured herself over the both of you and I'm certain she was about to propose to one of you. Dastardly of the two of you to keep from her your affair but what's done is done and you've simply got to chase her.”

Olivia gasped. “ _Chase her?_ ”

“Of course. You see, there's this instinct—”

Florence scoffed. “You mean the instinct of an Alpha to chase an Omega.”

Hannah nodded.

“But we're not Alphas...”

“It doesn't matter. When she runs, you chase. When you catch her, you seduce her. She's ripe for seduction, she's enthralled by you both. It would be likely impossible for her to refuse you. Morals and the like are useless platitudes when it comes to consensual attraction.”

They shared a glance again and Florence put out her hand, her pinkie finger tugging at Olivia's until they were linked. “Well?” she asked. “Shall we?”

“I suppose me must.”

Hannah's small smile was smug. “If you're not back by morning, I shall make every excuse I can for you. Make certain you're not seen and do take care not to tell Drew it was I who gave you such advice.”

Olivia snorted a little bit before she and Florence took their exit, the two of them tapping madly down the stairs until they could call for the coach and collect their cloaks. Once inside, they sat upon the same bench together and sat with a disturbed silence hanging around them. It felt as though they were off to have a rather wild adventure and one they were not sure they would entirely find enjoyable. About five minutes into their journey and Olivia was the first to voice the very item that produced such a mood.

“I'm not certain about the intercourse. Seduction is all well and good until it comes to that element. I hope you do not mind this confession.”

Florence stared at her through the dimness inside the coach. “You don't wish to be penetrated?”

“I...perhaps if I saw it done and then...”

“You wish for me to be the first then?”

She frowned. “If that is not suitable then I suppose I must accept it but you are the braver of the two of us...they say it can be painful.”

“They're a bunch of ninnies,” Florence grumbled. “But we don't even know if she'll take us. Perhaps she will be so unsettled by us that we cannot gain her back.”

“Oh don't say things so grim. I refuse to hear of it.” She held herself, her arms hugging over herself as if to bring her own comfort. Florence hugged her as well, squeezing tight. “I choose to believe that success is inevitable...after all, Hannah was right when she said she was enamored of us. It might be a fight but we've got to try and we must assume that she wants us enough to take the both of us. After all, she did kiss us both. That the other was not present at the time should bear no relevance.”

Florence kissed her Beta's cheek and nuzzled her ear. “You are such a stunning and logical woman. I love you, Olivia Idlewind.”

Olivia couldn't help but smile, a tingling contentment finally sweeping into her mild scent and washing away the tang of her nervousness. “I love you, Florence Stone. It is time now to brave the castle walls and claim our princess...arm yourself, my love.”

“And I am the brave one?” she teased, giggling a bit as the door to coach was opened. She was the one to exit first and she told the coachman to pull around back as not to be seen They were going to be quite naughty that night and it was no one's business but their own. She led her lover to the door, tapping up the steps and finding the door opened to them by a severe-looking Italian man she had never met before.

“Ladies,” he greeted, bowing deeply. “I am Russo. You are here for her Ladyship.”

“Her Ladyship?” Florence asked, wondering suddenly if they were in the right house.

“Ah yes. She hates when I call her that. She is bent upon erasing her legacy.”

His accent was difficult to parse in some places but Florence was able to grasp enough to know that she and Olivia were not the only women here keeping secrets. “You say your master is a noble then?”

“A noble of Italy, yes,” he smiled proudly. “ _La Contessa di Montralto!_ It is beautiful there this time of year, _signorina_.”

Florence felt a cascade of light fill her chest. “Russo, thank you. You're such a lovely man. Perhaps you will help Olivia and I find your master.”

“ _Olivia!_ ” he put up his hands to the Beta. “Ahh, and you are Florence. Ah but she pines for you! She pines for the both of you! You are the cats and she is the mouse, yes! And here you give chase!” He laughed a booming laugh that put cheer in Florence's soul. “Mighty cats, you go up the stairs and to the right. Her chamber is the last door! God have mercy on her, for you will devour her by sunrise, eh?! Hahahah!”

Thoroughly tickled, Florence took Olivia's hand and, sharing an emboldened expression, they quickly tapped their way up the stairs. The whole of the house it seemed was infused with a the scent of Alpha and not only that but the scent of an Alpha untamed, who was wild with some rampant emotion spiced with a heavy and distinct arousal. It was this arousal she could sense that put a dampness between her thighs and she hoped that even as a Beta, Olivia could feel the static of it through her body. Every book upon the bookshelves, every tapestry that hung over the walls had been steeped in this roiling aroma that grew stronger the closer they came to the chamber.

_Will she scream at us? Will she have anything left of her tattered resolve after the look of sheer desperation she gave me when she saw us together? Will she give any resistance to our advance? If she does not—should we advance at all?_

Olivia whispered. “ _Should we knock?_ ”

“And give her the courtesy she could not extend to us?” Florence retorted, reaching out and grasping the handle to the door, swinging it open without a hint of trepidation. It was the very least she deserved.

Of course, Florence couldn't possibly regret such a decision. Not when it gave her the satisfaction of finding the woman herself shocked to her very toes, whirling about with a startled gasp and backing up suddenly enough to knock a few articles from her vanity to the carpet. She was in her dressing gown, the garment tied at the waist, and it seemed nothing more beneath. Her dark blonde hair tumbled around her shoulders and her feet were bare, shuffling backwards until her back was too the wall.

“ _La Contessa!_ ” Florence cried, taking a bold step into the room. “I see we've got you at a bit of a disadvantage.”

The Alpha's eyes were wide with her shock and her mouth was hanging open as though she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Olivia came to Florence's side, still holding her hand. “Please forgive us,” she began, but Florence didn't let her finish.

“ _Oh no._ It is not you who should forgive us. Olivia has been near careless in her approach to you, that you were overly dense in not recognizing our affair has naught to do with how many hints this brilliant girl had given you.” She wagged her finger up before her as though scolding the Alpha. “I believe it is _us_ who shall take the burden of forgiveness for _your_ secrets as there was no manner in which we could have ever guessed at your title and your position! How should a woman be able to accept a proposal from such a woman when she cannot even trust her bride-to-be with the true nature of her heritage!? Of her legacy?!”

Olivia squeezed her hand, her glance alarmed.

“I...I...what are you...” she seemed to be gathering her bearings, her brows lowering to form a frown.

Olivia, bolstered, stepped forward. “Alpha, please do not be angered by our intrusion. It is only that we were certain you might have guessed at our intentions by now. We were keen to entrust to you our affections...both of us...together. We were not meant to be apart, you see, and you seemed the perfect partner for our continued stability...”

“St-stability...?” Straffton asked, her scent betraying her supreme confusion.

“A marriage to you for one of us would allow the other to remain a companion and would allow for financial assurances we could not have as women alone. You must understand it was with the best of intentions and we've developed quite strong feelings for you. I...I believe by our arrival here, you cannot deny that we've the passion for you necessary to...” Her cheeks were a heavy pink and her words dropped off with her embarrassment.

Florence picked it up easily. “To _seduce you_ , Alpha.”

Straffton blinked and then startled, a small shake of her head snapping her out of a clear thought. “ _I beg pardon?!_ ”

“We've come to throw you down upon your bed and take advantage of you, _Contessa_.”

There was a long moment in which the Alpha merely stared at them, her mind grinding forward over the bits and bobbles of information they had just thrown at her. When she spoke, there was an odd tilt to the side of her mouth that Florence nearly found disconcerting. “So what you're telling me is that two lovely virgin girls have come to my bedchamber with the intent to seduce me into a marriage with one of them by convincing me through intimate means that they are passionate enough to love me?”

Florence scoffed. “Virgins? Perhaps in the conventional manner. But who's conventional here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m trapped in DTW for a layover of 5 hours. Please comment so I can be entertained for these...the longest hours of my life. Also: I’m almost back from vacation can you believe??? I’m so glad to be back. Good god, I need a vacation from my vacation.


	12. Chapter 12

Now _this_ was a state of affairs she was completely and entirely unprepared to grapple with. Here she had been lamenting the position of herself in society and herself within her relationships with these two little minxes—and that she was _exactly_ like her father in many ways—only to have them arrive _together_ to seduce her not half an hour after she'd rejected the come hither of Florence's gaze. Of course, if she were to listen to the urging of her body, she would immediately take to these two girls like a possessive lioness, descending over them with an aggressive heat impossible to fight. But she was more an intellectual being than her body suggested. She reminded herself of this even as the front of her dressing gown began to show her embarrassing reaction to their presence and pronouncement.

“I...I suppose you must suggest then that your actions with each other would be enough to shed the vestiges of such a title? Though, I have to admit, the allure of the forbidden is an aspect of deflowering that Alphas do find much pleasure in...or so they say.”

“Then you have never been with a virgin?” Florence asked, taking a step forward to reclaim the ground she'd lost to Olivia when the girl had become bold. “I can assure you now, Alpha, if your standards for such a thing are as basic as most, you'll find we very much conform to it. We've not yet experienced the _touch_ of an Alpha...only the exploratory and naively passionate caresses between ourselves...”

Olivia's brow furrowed at her companion, incredulous. “Oh please, Florence, don't be heavy-handed. Alpha, we've not taken any other Alphas, that's suitable enough is it not?”

She could have choked on her laughter. “I did not mean to imply that it was a condition by which I would accept you. I do not think I have the willpower to reject you. At the very least, I do not think my body capable of forcing you out of my room nor my mind capable of forming the words to make you leave...for I do not wish it.” She brought her hand just over her heart. “You're too observant not to have noticed what you've done to me. If you were to throw me upon the bed and take me as a woman takes an Alpha, I would surely not complain.” How could she? She was overtaken by the both of them and no doubt when this was all finished and she was awakened by the gentle sun and the rustle of warm women around her, she would then be bullied into a marriage she was more than ready to allow herself to fall into. Here and now, there was too much arousal within her to consider the logistics of such a thing—with these two, perhaps it would simply fall into place around her.

Though Florence was the bolder of the two, it was Olivia who stepped forward, her hands shaking as she came to Alex and reached out to her, her touch like fire as she removed the Alpha's hand from her chest and slid her cool fingers beneath the edge of the dressing gown just at her neck. It was loose enough for her to coax it, her fingers sliding over the flesh of one collarbone as she moved to bare one bronzed shoulder and Alex felt an odd and unfamiliar vulnerability come over her. The Beta's movements were in no way calculated and Florence looked on with curiosity as Olivia, with the perfect bow of her lips and the gentle flutter of her eyelashes, leaned slowly to place one soft and devastating kiss to the slope of Alex's shoulder and neck. The press of those lips—D _io santo!—_ drove the Alpha into madness and she reached behind her, finding purchase on the cupboard as her knees lost their strength.

She felt breathless, torn. Her whole body felt as though it could explode should someone even dare look at her and so she closed her eyes to avoid Florence's bright-eyed stare. She could not fathom being gazed upon in intimacy and so, even knowing that there were eyes upon her, she gave a soft mewl when Olivia kissed her neck again, scraping her teeth very softly over the sensitive flesh. Deep breaths huffed in and out of her and not of her own volition and she let out a very odd little cry when she felt the Beta's strong grip on the edges of her dressing gown, urging her to stand and then pushing her to her bed.

Alex couldn't help but let out a pained laugh, her eyes fluttering open again to find Olivia's expression to be a determined one. “You truly will ravage me then?”

She pressed Alex until she was fully on the bed, letting her go only when Florence came to her aid in unlacing her bodice. “Is that not what you wished for, Alpha? To be ravaged?”

“Oh, it is,” she replied, her breathlessness apparent with every word. “ _God_ , it is...”

These _women,_ she thought while she watched them. Florence's small fingers were deft as she undressed her lover, Olivia patient with her and poised even on the brink of intimacy—it was a poise that would have taken Alex years to perfect should she have been inclined to do so but came naturally to a steadfast and beautiful Beta girl. Florence was seemingly a master at this—her matter-of-fact nature placing her more upon the level of a courtesan than a debutante and her comfort around undressing her lover causing Alex's mouth to water. One day this girl would undress _her_ in so cavalier a manner and it would drive her under for certain. She couldn't help her small gasp when Olivia's gown dropped to the floor and she could see the girl's dusky nipples just barely through the translucent nature of her chemise. Florence was next, patiently waiting for Olivia to unlace her but not so poised as her mate, her nervousness and her arousal apparent in her dulcet scent and in the way she fidgeting with her fingers together before her. When she, too, was left in naught but her chemise, the two came upon the bed together.

Alex couldn't speak. She could only feel and see and _want_. Olivia had pushed her down onto the counterpane and untied the sash of her dressing gown, gently pushing aside the fabric to reveal that she wore nothing beneath. Alex had hardly been shy before when plenty of others had cast eyes over her nakedness but now it was as though everything in the world rode upon how these two women saw her. She squirmed under their scrutiny and closed her eyes, unwilling to see how they reacted to the sight of her tanned flesh and the foreignness of what lay rigid upon her lower belly. Of course, closing one's eyes had the distinct consequence of heightening the other senses and just the barest of touches upon that very member drove her to cry out in shock.

“Have I hurt you, Alpha?”

She peered up into Olivia's concerned face and tried to catch her breath as best she could. “N-No. No. God no. I apologize, I...no woman as lovely as you has ever...well...” She found Florence looking over her as well, wisps of her beautiful dark blonde hair falling about her face as they escaped her thick, coiled braid. Alex reaching up, tentatively, touching first Florence's soft cheek and then skimming the back of her finger across her plush bottom lip. “You both are simply so enchanting that I can scarce believe this is not some lurid dream.”

“It is certainly not a dream, Alpha,” Olivia replied, dipping her head and causing Alex to shiver and gasp when she tasted the pink of her nipple. She took to suckling it, a sensation the Alpha was entirely unused to which sent sharp jolts of arousal straight between her thighs, her muscles tensing and causing her shaft to jump.

“Oh!” Florence cried before she fell into a bout of giggles. “I think I shall become quite fond of this aspect of you should it act so silly all the time.”

“ _Uhn..._ ” she tried, helpless as she felt Olivia's hands come to explore her body, teasing her other nipple and brushing down her ribs and belly.

The Alpha was reaching, touching any expanse of flesh that she could and pulling at the straps of each girls' chemise until their breasts were exposed to the steady lamplight, soft and giving and utterly enthralling. She wanted to touch them. She wanted to pinch their little nipples between her fingers and hear them squeal in pleasure.

_I seem to be the one squealing in pleasure here!_

“ _Ahhhn!_ ” she let loose, startled when she felt Florence's touch upon her inner thighs, urging her to spread her legs, exposing herself fully to their inspection. Olivia was very much busy with her breasts, taking her time in ways that only a woman with much patience could. She almost closed her legs when she felt curious fingers edging upward, exploring touches brushing over the dampness that hid just behind her proud _Alpha_ member. “ _Mmmrgh..._ ”

Florence mused softly, “How interesting a woman Alpha's anatomy is. That you've still got all the right pieces...how honestly attractive. And I suppose most men wish you hadn't this very piece of you...” Alex felt the intrusion of two gentle fingers inside her body, reminding her of the very feminine part of her she often ignored. At her soft keen, Florence continued. “I wonder how you taste...?” It was no sooner than she had posed the question, she sought to answer it, the wisps of her hair tickling Alex's thighs as she dipped her head down and pressed a probing tongue against that very spot, the expedition having the added effect of stimulating the very base of the Alpha's engorged member.

“ _F-F-F-Florence!_ ” she sobbed, her hand shooting down between her thighs to grip at the girl's head. “ _Dio Santo, sto per morire!_ ” The hold did not stop the Omega who ignored her entirely, her hands coming to gently lift Alex's shaft and her tongue licking sweetly over the underside until she had reached the top.

“Hmm,” Florence hummed softly, rubbing her pink lips over the velvet of Alex's cock, “Olivia, my sweet, you simply must taste her. She's not like dry wine...not like you...she is musky and deep...I cannot describe it...”

“Oh?” Olivia asked, lifting herself and moving down the Alpha's body, settling next to her lover and taking from her the toy she had so recently discovered.

Alex nearly sat up at the sight of the girl poised to take her into her wet, open mouth. “Wait! Wait...you may take your taste but do not take it long. I cannot hold out!” She grimaced at the feel of the girl sensuously enveloping her between those sweet lips but still, she watched her, the erotic nature of the display nearly too much for her to stand. “ _Oh God. Oh..._ ”

Popping off of her, Olivia studied her with half-lidded eyes. “I suppose I must know how you wish to be ravaged, Alpha. It would be unfair of me to place you upon your back and not take advantage of you properly, would it not?” She lifted herself, swinging her leg over Alex's body in order to straddler her waist, the crux of her still hidden by her sagging chemise.

“Beta...” Alex begged, her hands pushing at the fabric along Olivia's thighs, pressing it upward in a silent plea.

“Florence? Might you help me?”

“Of course, my love,” she replied, standing upon the bed and grasping at Olivia's undergarment, pulling it up until it had slithered over her head and off of her, leaving her deliciously naked, her thighs spread open and the musk of her arousal a scent which cloyed at Alex's senses. Florence discarded the silk and lace in a flutter to the floor and then found a position in which she could reach around her lover from the back, her hands brushing over Olivia's breasts and belly. “Are you quite ready for her, _Contessa?_ ” she asked sweetly. “I cannot know if you are. You smell like you might be but she is a very delicate creature, you know. I've had her plenty of times but she's yet to take an Alpha inside her...to be the first...”

Alex's hands were still upon the girl's thighs and she could not break eye-contact with her if she tried. Olivia's gaze was bashful and sweet though it exuded a masterful confidence that had gripped her very soul. Her mouth felt dry and her throat constricted while she lay back on her pillow. “I...I'm ready for her. I could not be any more ready for her...”

“Are you certain, Alpha?” Florence pried, one slender, pale hand dipping to the place between Olivia's legs, skimming over her curls until she could part her and reveal the dark pink inner folds, her touch causing the Beta to take in the slightest of gasps. “I suppose if you're ready, the only part left is making certain that _she_ is. But my, if she isn't so wet already...I suppose I shouldn't be shocked. You are _rather_ attractive.”

“By God,” she begged pitifully, “take me from my misery! I cannot wait any longer! As an Alpha, I'm weak. Two against one is hardly fair! I am at your mercy, my lovers, my...”

“Will you call us your wives?” Florence asked softly, her chin resting upon Olivia's shoulder and her bright eyes cast down over Alex in simple question.

Her reply was without a shred of hesitation. _“My wives.”_

Olivia smiled bright with a sigh, her teeth gently taking in her bottom lip with how pleased she had become and she leaned a bit to adjust in order to move down toward where Florence held Alex steady enough to impale her. She and the Omega worked together to place the soft tip of her at the girl's entrance and then with a gentle pressure downward, she was breached and used her own weight to slowly sink down, her eyes closing as she took in the sensation.

Florence peered at the Beta's face, studying her. “Well?”

“Well what?” Olivia asked her, a small bit breathless.

“Well, how is it?!”

She giggled. “You'll have your turn, you ninny. Let me get used to it...my heart is pounding...how fearful I have been over something so perfectly decent.”

Alex shifted her hands from the girl's thighs to her waist, very gently touching her, as if in reverie. “ _Olivia..._ move...like this...please...” She guided her, showing her just how to move her hips to allow Alex to slide in and out of her, the pleasure and eroticism of every movement enough to make the Alpha's jaw shudder as she breathed. She couldn't look. Especially not when Olivia was rocking back and forth, her breasts bouncing merrily with the motion of her body. God, she'd come off far too quick in that case!

“ _Mmm,_ ” the Beta moaned, prompting Alex to again open her eyes to find Florence toying with Olivia's nipples, the girl close at her lover's back and touching her with every affection she could muster. A thin sheen of shimmering sweat had come over the Beta's body and her cinnamon eyes were clouded with a pervasive lust as she moved and her body tensed and squeezed where she was opened and penetrated.

“ _Uhhhn..._ ” Alex sighed, bending her knees and digging her heels into the bed to gain leverage enough to drive up into the Beta whose body had taken her so sweetly. She moved slow at first, gauging Olivia's reaction to her before she began a steady, matching pace that was faster than what the girl could complete on her own.

“Oh!”

“Oh?” Florence asked.

“ _Oh!_ ” was her only response before she leaned forward, her hands upon either side of Alex's head as she pulled back a grimace of concentration and shut her eyes, focusing hard upon the slap of the woman's body against hers and the pleasure she found in her position. “ _Oh just there, Alpha. Just there!_ _Oh that feels good. That feels very, very good! Oh! Oh! Oh!_ ” The climax of her pleasure was marked by a long, relieved sigh that was accompanied by a heavy shaking and the clasp and release of her inner walls in contractions which put Alex _far_ over the edge—reminding her that she was lucky enough even to have managed to get so far without coming!

“ _Mmmmrgh!_ ” Alex groaned, spending in intense and jerking spasms that clenched her entire abdomen over and over until finally it subsided enough for her to speak, her voice raw and wilted. “I am...slayed by you.”

“You might be slayed by me,” Florence quipped from Olivia's shoulder again. “There you've gone, coming off inside her while completely neglecting me! How ungentlemanly.”

There was a usual tiredness that came over Alphas just after a coupling and so she blinked slowly up at Florence with humor in her heart. “Oh you little dirty minx, why don't you show me just what you've got to offer and bring that little rump around here so you might kiss your lover and let me kiss at your little slit?”

The girl drew up at her language, her cheeks suddenly a ruddy pink which spread in an attractive flush down between her small breasts. Still, for all her embarrassment, she was willing enough and came to straddle Alex's head, clearly comfortable sitting on a woman's face. Even the thought that such a girl would have found her throne upon Lady Olivia's lips was enough to have her cock twitching again despite its sensitivity. She was sweet. Of course, Alex had anticipated that, and she was so, _so_ wet, her feminine drippings trickling over the Alpha's cheeks as she kissed and sucked and lapped and drew out the most delectable whines and keens from the girl's throat which were promptly muffled by the Beta's lips.

This was certainly not what she'd thought might happen with these two, she admitted to herself as she swallowed a good bit of saliva and _Omega_. She was in over her head, that was for certain, and she couldn't help but feel as though she were properly duped. All those past conversations floated into her brain and she could see it in their faces. _Lady Olivia? Florence Stone?_ The confusion she'd seen, the utter speechlessness in some cases—they'd known? They'd known! They'd known and they'd sought not to tell her for their own self-doubt! She could have laughed with the angst and the irony of it all. If but one of them had said anything at all, she would never have found herself so thoroughly fascinated and so gratefully fucked. Fate was sometimes a cruel and unforgiving mistress—and yet...she deigned, by the by, for _magic_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So much for Florence going first.
> 
> Hello from the first update of today. (⌐■_■) Back from vacation and spamming you with some Tarantella...just two updates today along with the one from yesterday. If you didn't read yesterday's update, then you're gonna be buried in three chapters. No regrets.
> 
> [whisper] _Lesbians._


	13. Chapter 13

Olivia should not have been surprised in the least when she arrived home to find Drew sitting up in the parlor when she returned home.  What she was most surprised about was that Val was sitting with her, his paints around him while he delicately pressed the tip of his brush against a canvas to capture the Alpha where she lounged.

“Is it not far too late—or perhaps early—to be doing something like this?  Do the both of you ever sleep?” she asked curiously, pulling her cloak tighter around her shoulders.

Drew didn't answer the question but chose another path instead.  “Was the seduction a success?”

Olivia felt her face heat with a generous supply of blood and she passed Valentine a severe glance which was answered with a wary expression of his own.  Drew was a woman who was not to be trifled with and every ounce of her tone implied that she was not in the slightest bit amused by what she had deduced from this evening.  The Beta drew herself up to reply with dignity.  “I've no idea—”

“It is nigh four o'clock in the morning, Olivia, do not press me.  Do you need preventative measures or do you not?”

“Preventative...?”

“If you're not to be wed, you're not to have a pup.  Those are the rules in this house and you will follow them.  Of all of us, I would have thought you to be safe from such a fate, but I suppose one cannot always predict such things.”  She adjusted the way she leaned on the couch so that her shoulder might not cramp up and peered over at Valentine.  “We've enough pups already and we'll be having plenty more.  If you need one to play with, they're around.”

“I...I didn't go there to become with child...” she replied softly.

“Then why did you?  I've puzzled over your odd relationships constantly and not a soul seems to think it alright to talk to me about any of this.  Do I seem so rigid in my morals that I would become angered by your tastes?”

Olivia felt her mouth open slowly and her brows come together in confusion.  “Alpha, what are you talking about?”

“Are you so oblivious, Beta?  Do you not see how obvious you are?  Gods, am I so old now that young women are now like children to me?”  She passed Olivia a saddened stare.  “I know who you love.  Why are you pursuing an Alpha?  What is there to gain?”

A strange and deeply drawn well of panic began to pull up in her chest.  Drew?  Drew had known?  “I don't understand.”

“No, it is I who does not understand.  Did you not think that I would take care of you?  Florence has always been welcome here.  She's welcome here, Netherfield, wherever you choose, I would have provided for you. I would have made absolutely certain that nothing would ever befall you in the whole of your lives.  There would have been concessions made for you in the event of my death—you would want for nothing.  But for some reason, not a single one of you could come to me.  Am I so intimidating?  Would it be so difficult to tell me?”

“Y-you...” she couldn't speak, her eyes filling with hot tears.  “You...knew?”

“Of course I knew.  I told you just seconds ago that you were obvious!  It is likely that the whole of the decent bit of England knows.”  She sighed, putting an impatient hand through her short, dark hair which caused Val to tsk at her.  “Do you want this Alpha?  I need to know no more than this.  Do you want her?”

“I...I do.”

“And Florence?  Do you want her?”

She gave pause for a moment, staring at her sister's serious gaze.  “Y-yes.  I do.”

“And you believe yourself capable of having both of them...of loving both of them equally as partners?  Without a shadow of doubt in your mind, you know in certainty that you will love them for the rest of your days?”

“Yes.”  She tried this one with more certainty.

“Very well.  I will make it so.  But next time you little fools do things behind my back, I will be very cross indeed with you.  For as shameless as many of you behave, it seems that you all can't seem to help yourselves but to hide things from me. An aspect I surely will never understand.”

Olivia wiped at her eye with the heel of her palm, pulling a few hot tears from her cheek.  “Drew...you chastise me for being so oblivious when you yourself are too much so as well.  An Alpha's way of going about things is far more...brash.  It was a matter to be handled delicately...”

“Valentine, do I not handle things delicately?”

The Omega's lips tightened and his eyes widened considerably while he likely cursed the moment he had decided to be in the room for this conversation.  “Oh dear, you cannot ask me a question like this one.  I have a bias, I'm afraid.”

“You have a warring bias as well.  What is your opinion on my delicacy?”

“My love, my darling, my sweet Alpha,” he began lovingly, “You will stop at nothing.”

Drew's eyes narrowed at him but there was a humor in the curve of her mouth.  “Olivia, you may go to your bed but know that on the morrow, your Alpha and I are to have a discussion and it is likely that you will be present for some of it.  You may not disappear...and if Florence comes to you, keep her here.  I'll not have any more of this beating about the bush—if this Alpha has compromised you, which she assuredly has, you'll be married post haste.”

“Yes, Alpha.”

It was always nerve-wracking to be scolded by Drew but this particular scolding she could live with, she supposed.  The three of them had done very little in the way of discussion after the first round of sex and had merely recouped their energy to continue the evening of sensual delights.  There would need to be talking—there would need to be a serious consideration of what was to happen now.  She and Florence had successfully seduced the Alpha but they had not caught her quite yet.  That was what Drew had feared, of course and what Drew was very good at doing.

_Am I so intimidating?_

The idea that she should be so forthcoming to her ruling Alpha as to tell her that she was in love with another woman was laughable.  How could Drew have even suggested that she could have come to her?  It did not make any sense!  But then again, they were as close as sisters could be, and not only that but she had recently confessed to Hannah, who had already known.

_Is there a soul who doesn't know?_

She didn't want to think about how many of their family and friends might have already known or simply suspected.  The way they talked to them, the way they looked at them, the confusion in their eyes when they found out about the courtship from Miss Straffton...perhaps there was no decent person in England who didn't know.  She went to bed with that thought in her mind and curled up with her pillow to her chest and her knees around it, feeling the pulse of a pleasant ache between her thighs.

Goodness, she mused as sleep overtook her, wouldn't they be shocked to find her at the altar?

Talking woke her.  Voices just outside her chamber door before they silenced and someone entered.  A gentle, warm hand came to her head and she stirred a bit, taking in a deep breath through her nose to discover that Florence had come to her, her scent sparkling with radiance.  Her voice was like that of an angel, light but beautiful.

“My Olivia, darling, do wake yourself.  It is nearly midday and your fate is being decided without you.  Shouldn't you like to be present?”

“Mm...must I be?” she mumbled, rolling in her covers enough to free a hand and grasp at her mate's wrist.  “I would much rather tumble about with you...though I am a bit sore from last evening.  Let the Alphas decide what to do and let me dream on with you beside me.”

“That is not the manner in which a woman should live her life and you know it,” Florence chided.  “Come.  We've got to get you dressed and down to the drawing room before your sister challenges our dear Alex to a duel for having stripped you of your purity.”

“You should be the one defending, Omega.  As it was truly you who stripped away my purity.”

Florence pulled away from her with a dramatic expression.  “How dare you accuse me of such a heinous crime.  I deny it...mostly.”  She grinned devilishly and then disappeared into Olivia's dressing room, pulling out a lovely gray gown suitable for taking visitors in the mornings.  The girl had her dressed so quickly that Olivia wasn't even certain she was fully awake before her hair was braided and she was ushered down the stairs.  Florence took a moment just before they entered the drawing room to tuck some spare strands of Olivia's hair behind her ears and pinch her cheeks to give her a natural flush.

The Alphas were both standing and there was a prickle of tension in the room but only just a slight amount.

Drew turned to greet them, not a shred of her countenance betraying that she likely had not slept the previous night.  “Ladies, how kind of you to join us.  I've taken the liberty of having the cook make you both some chocolate for your breakfast.”

Olivia raised her brows.  It was unlike Drew to forgo a full breakfast meal but this, she supposed, might take a while and chocolate was easier to take in the drawing room than anything else.  “Thank you, and good morning.  I suppose you're making our dear Miss Straffton a little nervous already.”

Straffton was standing tall near the window, her hands clasped behind her back and her shoulders square.  She was certainly not as intimidated by the Earl as others often were and she made a distinct bow to the ladies when they arrived.

“I cannot say,” Drew replied with a slight smile.  “I think we've come to an agreement.  She's been very forthright about her intentions for you and I'm happy to note that they seem to match well with mine.  Of course, there is the matter of Florence.”

Florence peeped a bit in surprise.  “Me?  What's to do with me?  I thought I might simply exist...what's so terrible about that?”

“What's so terrible about that,” Straffton began, “is that it does not properly characterize how deeply I adore the both of you.  I wish for you both to be my wife...not simply Olivia.”

Drew was, shockingly, nodding slightly as she stood near the mantle.

Olivia wasn't certain what to make of this entirely so she let herself have her little frown and wandered over to where the cups of chocolate sat upon a tray and helped herself to one, happily discovering how warm they were.  “I'm sorry,” she stated between sips, “I fear I don't quite understand what the solution to this issue might be.”

Florence replied as well, “Count me into that category as well.  I'm puzzled, Alphas.  Now that you know about us, my Lady, is there something we've not caught in our positions to lead toward a fashion in which an Alpha might take more than one wife?  I was under the impression that such a deviance was frowned upon.”

Drew cleared her throat.  “It is, of course, frowned upon.  But there are ways that an Alpha might work around such a thing.  Miss Straffton's own valet seems to have struck upon a thought some time ago which has merit in my eyes should you all be careful in its execution.”

Olivia shared a glance with Florence before they both peered upon Straffton with questioning eyes.

“Ah.” The Alpha stepped forward.  “Russo is quite a shrewd Beta, you see.  His suggestion was that I wed one of you in England as Mrs. Straffton, and the other in Italy at my villa as la Contessa di Montralto.”  She cleared her throat softly.  “Of course when we are in England, I am seen with the English wife and when I am in Italy, I am seen with the Italian wife.  Should I promise to split my time evenly between the two, then I have permission to take Lady Olivia as my English wife.”

Florence looked at Olivia.  “Well that's just about fair, you're a Lady by your own right here, and I should be a Lady by marriage there!”

Olivia felt an odd sunshine begin to warm in her gut.  “What a novel little idea.  Russo is quite the clever Beta.  I suppose it should take some guile.”

Drew chuckled.  “You mention it as though you do not have guile to spare.”  She walked to the tray and picked up another cup of chocolate, giving it to Florence before she returned to her space near the mantle, placated that everyone was taken care of the way they ought to be.  “The only thing left for you all to discuss is how you might like your bondmarks.  I'll be procuring a license for the wedding and you'll have it quickly.  I'll not have any pups in this house who have to do any counting to understand the circumstances of their birth.”  The only thing the woman might have left off the end of that statement was the words, like me.  It was no secret among the Idlewinds that Drew had been born just a mere few weeks after the marriage of their parents.  “Now, if you'll excuse me, I don't think any more harm can be done by leaving you three alone togther. I'll be back after I've made out a few letters.  Take this time to discuss your circumstances, for they will not be changing.”  She left then, casting a meaningful glance toward Olivia before she disappeared.

A silence fell over them for a few moments before Florence, of course, broke it.

“I do not know how I feel about having your bite upon my throat, Miss Straffton.  I feel I should simply say it aloud right now to get it out of the way.”

Olivia looked at her curiously.  “Well...perhaps rings?”

Straffton, tall and stately and honestly beautiful in the late morning light from the window, regarded the both of them carefully.  “Ladies, I am of the mind that there should be a bite upon both of you.  Miss Stone, since your mouth is a little too small to be misconstrued for mine, I suggest then that my bite lay upon Lady Olivia, and Lady Olivia's bite lay upon you.”

“Well...being an Omega, I suppose I need not bite anyone.  But I would very much like Olivia's mark...that is acceptable.  Perhaps when...when we are more well-acquainted, I should like another bite...from you, Alpha.  Perhaps somewhere it could not appear as though you were over-zealous and bit me twice.”

Straffton nodded kindly.  “As you wish, little one.  I would gladly bend to your whims.  Perhaps a little nip upon your rump would suffice.”

Florence flushed attractively and Olivia wanted to kiss her right then and there for it.  “We will discuss it further...perhaps...”

“Of course.  I should allow you both to note that I am an Alpha of no small means.  I am not only a landlord in the small fishing village along the northern coast but I also own a small shipping company and am in possession of a fleet of schooners.  One of them shall take us to Italy and we may spend our time there when it is not the season in London...is this something you both shall object to?  Being away from your families, I know might be a trial...”

Olivia spoke then.  “If we shall become homesick then you will simply take us back to England, will you not?”

“Of course...though I will ask that we spend as little time apart as possible.  I think I shall become very close to my wives, you see...for I have fallen in love with them quite deeply.  How could I resist their charms, after all?”

The Beta approached her, setting down her empty chocolate cup and coming to the Alpha until she could take her hands in both of hers.  “I am sorry that we kept the nature of ourselves a secret from you.  I see now that we should have been forthcoming.”

“You couldn't have known how I would respond...and how I did respond was shameful.  To make you chase me...I've slept on the matter and I see now that there is no reason to deny my father's philandering blood in my veins.  I can quite well keep to an oath—provided it is to both of you together.”

Florence set down her own cup with a little clatter upon the tray and came to the both of them, placing her own hand upon theirs.  “Then we are all in agreement.”

Playfully, Straffton took away her hand and caught Florence about the waist, tucking the small girl between them.  “I think, little Omega, we are all in agreement—Lady Olivia and I are going to spoil the devil out of you if I'm not mistaken.”

Olivia grinned over top of Florence's head at the Alpha who gave her a wink.  “Oh, I think Miss Straffton, you must be right indeed.  This little one is going to become quite fat indeed.  With pup or with sweets, who shall know?”

“I will not become fat!  Though if I shall, I suppose it will simply be a mark of being so loved.”  She giggled to herself.  “Perhaps I could become used to being so spoiled...”

Crowding closer together and nearly smushing Florence between them, Straffton caught Olivia by the side of her face and gave her a gentle kiss before she laid another on the very top of the Omega's head.  “I think we'll all have to get used to having exactly what we wish for...it could be much of a challenge to find all your dreams come true...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Drew was like "Who is this shit Alpha and why is she taking my sister on dates?" But...maybe more charitable than that. Wow. It's good to be back home, tell you whhhut.


	14. Chapter 14

The wind was fluttering through Florence Stone's soft dark blonde hair as she held the rail of the fast little schooner that had taken them all the way across the ocean. The sun was high in the sky and she could see the coast and the small inlet where they would dock. Warmth and an uneasiness was floating within and she could feel the readiness inside her—the cusp of her heat and her willingness to finally be joined with her mates in a way that no one else could possibly fathom.

Olivia had been wed in a small, discreet ceremony that had been attended by mostly just the Idlewinds and that night had certainly been one to remember—but this wedding, well...this one was _hers._ She was giddy with the idea and even more giddy when she felt Olivia come beside her, the Beta giving her a knowing stare that was coupled with a tilt to her mouth that betrayed her own pleasure at the thought.

Olivia's voice was soft and mild as it always was. “They say Italy is beautiful this time of year.”

“How can they say that about everywhere?”

“Alex told me about her villa. It's quite lovely, so she says. If we wish, we might take a day and see...um...” she frowned, her lips forming out the name of the place with an adorable amount of trepidation. “ _Civitavecchia._ ”

“Forgive me for this sentiment, my love, but I would rather laze about in a charming Italian villa with my two gorgeous lovers than look at mouldering old rocks that used to be some Roman man's house a hundred or so years ago. And forgive me for my irritability on the matter but I think I am close to coming down with a rather ferocious heat and I'm very much of the mind that it will be difficult even for two lovers to handle my typical moodiness.” She sighed, feeling frustration welling up and then simmering for no good reason at all. “I feel as though there is something inside me that will explode one day...”

“Shall we forget that you are called Florence and dub you Vesuvius instead?”

“I will step on your toe if you do. Then you will be sorry.”

“When the sailors turn their backs to us, will you give me a kiss? Even a petulant little kiss from my Omega will do me fine to know that despite her raised hackles, at heart she still loves me.” Olivia was smiling, her light cinnamon eyes sparkling in the sunlight.

Florence looked around them and, once she was certain that no members of the crew were looking in their direction, she leaned and gave the quickest little peck to the side of Olivia's mouth. “There. It is almost as though you might wish for scandal. I cannot believe how daring you Betas can be sometimes.”

“Ah and yet you humor me.”

She noted Alex approaching across the deck and turned fully with her back against the rail, prompting Olivia to do the same.

“Hmm,” the Alpha mused as she wandered up. “You two look like cats who've eaten a canary—pray tell me what I should be chagrined about so that I might come to terms with it already.”

“It is nothing Alpha,” Florence replied, “just a stolen kiss that might have been seen by the crew...”

Oliva gasped. “It was not seen by the crew.”

Alex was smiling wide. “As though the crew could fault either of you for kissing? I think perhaps you misjudge the sort who sail. Far be it from them to prosthetize as there is no God at sea.”

“How could that be?” Olivia asked, her brow furrowed.

“There is not a minister to give last rites to a man who sails, is there? No. They've their own superstitions and I doubt they'd begrudge a girl for her kisses. Though by the smell of one of these girls, they may begrudge something else. Florence, we'd best call for Father Rispoli as soon as we've docked. He's a drunkard and a fool but by the eyes of God, he's a man who can marry us.”

“So then after this week,” Olivia provided, “when we are all happily married and bonded and sated in all the best of ways, we might go for a trip to see the ruins?” Her eyes were still alight.

“Of course we will,” Alex nodded happily. “My father used to show me all sorts of Roman ruins—there are ruins of a bathhouse about. You can see all sorts of uncommon things. Perhaps we shall even travel to Rome.”

The Beta clasped her hands together excitedly. “Tell me you do not jest!”

“Of course I do not jest, the both of you will adore Rome, it is a remarkable city. Of course I will have to teach you a few passable phrases of Italian but that's easily done...and perhaps we shall get you a new hat, Olivia, as I can see already that your cheeks have pinkened on the journey here.”

The Beta leaned toward Florence and put her arms around her in an excited hug that only served to make Florence more hot and uncomfortable. “Do you hear, Florence? We're going to learn languages and history!”

“ _We already know languages._ ”

“We know French, silly, it's not the same!”

“I'm not silly.”

Alex reached out and took Florence's hand, kneeling down upon one knee until she could stare upward into the Omega's eyes. “You're going to be alright, little Florence. How about we talk about what's going to happen when we arrive at the villa?”

She sighed, feeling tension still thrumming within her.

“It's going to be cool with a gentle breeze that runs through the white, sheer linen panels. The marble on the floors is going to be cold beneath your slippers and you'll come to the master chamber where I will have a cool bath drawn for you so you may lounge within it until Father Rispoli can come and wed us with no more witnesses than our dearest lover Olivia and the rest of my servants.” She reached up and tucked a stray lock of her hair behind her ear, causing shivers to move through her and peak her nipples. “Then, for an entire week, you need not wear a single stitch of clothing and whenever you may wish for someone to come between your legs and pleasure you, you will need only ask.”

“And I will be...”

“My wife. _La Contessa di Montralto._ ”

She glanced at Olivia, a soft blush in her cheeks. “That...that does have a rather nice ring to it.”

Alex stood up, swiping a thumb over Florence's jaw before she leaned down to kiss her, her lips warm and giving and her tongue teasing and sweet.

“Mmm...” she moaned into the Alpha's mouth. “Do not kiss me so sweetly, Alpha, you may bring me so close the priest could not possibly find us fit to marry.”

“My apologies,” she chuckled, not at all sorry if her scent was anything to go by. “Come. We're docking soon. I will send a courier as soon as we are upon land and make our way straight home.”

“ _Home..._ ” Olivia murmured beside her. “Gracious how difficult that seems to imagine in such a strange place. How shall I ever go back to England and think of Italy then as my home?”

Florence took her hand and squeezed softly. “Both shall be home.”

“I must get used to the idea, I think.” She was worrying her lip in the way she always seemed to when she wasn't sure of things. “I am so far away from Drew...and Drew has always protected me from things.”

Alex reached for her arm, squeezing her shoulder. “Do you trust me, Olivia?”

“Yes. Whole-heartedly.”

“Then what have you to fear?”

“I...I suppose nothing. Save that I could one day find that I had spent so long here that I lost my connection with my family—we have been so close, you know.”

“One day,” the Alpha replied, “I will have your family here. To my villa. The whole of it teeming with your sisters and their children, screaming and loud and splashing in the wading pool. And they will not see you as unfashionably bronzed here but kissed by the sun in all the best of ways.”

Florence sidled next to Olivia until she was flush against her. “I think I should like to see you sun-kissed. All of you. Perhaps we should make it habit to sunbathe in the nude.”

“ _Florence..._ ”

“Yes?”

Before the Beta could chastise her further, the captain of the ship let out a call to tell them that they were nearly ready to find their feet on dry land and so they were off then to collect their things and be ready to leave. It was difficult for her to find herself not tripping with every step when she was on solid ground and so she spent most of her time with her hands upon Alex's arm until they were finally in the coach and on their way down the cobbled streets from the port toward the countryside.

Despite being a fair amount warmer and far more sunny than the English countryside, Florence found it very much similar despite some small differences. Italy _smelled_ different. The land had something of a musk to it that was unfamiliar and strange but at the same moment, inviting and tantalizing. It was almost as though, in this foreign place, there was a latent goddess who tempted and teased and whispered in an Omega's ear to _stay._ She immediately determined that she loved this place and she hoped that Olivia would come to love it in very much the same way.

Of course, how could Olivia not come to love at the very least the massive villa that rose from the countryside on the very edge of the sea, the salt in the wind adding the scent of paradise to the lushness around them when they exited the coach. The cypress trees swayed in the mercurial moods of the ocean breezes and rustled around them as they were led by a very excited Russo over the grounds and past the clear water of the wading pool toward the columns that set apart where marble met stone.

“Graces,” Olivia breathed, looking up around at the vast pillars of marble and the gilded inlay that swirled about them and glinted in the sun. “I'd no idea...”

“I'm not a woman who can live upon her father's legacy,” Alex explained. “Along with my title came a sizable inheritance which I declined to touch in favor of making my own way in the world. Hence the shipping business in England...but this is the truth of my wealth that I cannot hide from a wife...” She looked up around her, almost as though she wished she could have gotten rid of such an incredible home. “...or,” she added, “ _two wives_ , as it is...”

“ _La Contessa!_ ” came a shrill voice from just beyond the fluttering linen panels that hung between the columns faced out toward the sea. From the glimmering sunlight emerged a slight black haired Omega with golden skin and plush lips. Her hair was wind-swept and her feet were bare, a veritable sea nymph, Florence thought. When she came upon Alex, a wave of Italian spilled from her lips excitedly and then angrily, her sweet nature-based scent gaining the musty rot that was typical of the emotion. Florence fought the urge to hold her nose, choosing instead to stare at Olivia who at once stared back, their wariness shared.

Alex, for her part, spoke softly to the darling who had come to them in such a fuss, clearly urging her to sit while Russo fetched her a drink. When the Alpha turned back around, she was holding her head. “Pardon, my loves. A...um...”

“Former lover?” Florence asked.

“No. Though she perhaps wished that were the case. My father and hers were on good terms and perhaps she thought a marriage was in order. There never was such a thing. Why do you not go upstairs and I will take care of this? Russo will show you to our chamber and I will call you when the priest has arrived.”

“Of course,” Olivia stated though Florence really did wish to see more of these dramatics—she always did love to see a decent drama play out, even if she couldn't understand the language. Some things didn't need to be said. “Come, Omega. Let us see about that bath for you.”

It was a glorious bath. Mostly it was glorious because she was naked and after, she was was very much against the idea of putting clothes back on though she understood the necessity of it.

“But do I have to wear shoes?” she asked the Beta where she lay in the bath, staring at the lovely light gown the woman had laid out for her upon the bed. “That Omega who came did not wear shoes and I do not think I wish to wear them either.”

“Then do not wear shoes, my love.”

“Do you think we will have trouble with beautiful women like that?”

“No, I do not.”

Florence toyed with the surface of the water in the tub, staring at her toe where it stuck up. “She is very beautiful. You do not think that our Alpha will be tempted?”

“No,” Olivia replied plainly. “I do not.”

“Why?”

“Because you are a little piece of the sun. Savage and wild and wicked in ways that no Omega in the world could compare to. You are like an angel with the spirit of the devil. If you should wish to sunbathe nude, our Alpha would have no choice but to love you for the rest of her days.”

“She _already_ has no choice in that matter. It is only that I do not wish her to think that she really _can_ embrace her father's legacy...from what I know of her father, anyhow.”

Olivia smiled at her, smoothing wrinkles out of the fabric of the gown before she came to the tub and knelt beside it, her warm cinnamon gaze so loving that Florence felt her heart squeeze with affection. “You truly are your Oma's daughter. Worried about things that will never happen...”

“Do not bring my Oma into this. He's nothing like me. I'm a firebrand like my father.”

“Your Oma ran amok through the manor of the Earl of Dentonshire to tell a Baron sixteen years his junior to marry him. I'd venture to say you take after your Oma far more than you realize.”

Just as she was about to make a very witty retort, the door was opened by Russo who seemed the only servant who knew any English at all. “Ladies, I am meant to tell you that the priest has arrived. He is downstairs in the courtyard. When you are ready, you may come down.”

“Russo?” Florence asked, preventing him from leaving. His eyes were fixed to the ground to prevent his accidentally glimpsing her nudity out of prudence and respect to the Alpha of the house. “Who was that woman?”

“Lady Martina. She was an acquaintance with the family and a resident of an estate which shares the beach of this one.”

“Do you think her prettier than I am?” Florence asked, rolling onto her tummy and supporting herself with her arms on the edge of the tub.

“There is not a soul upon the earth, save perhaps Lady Olivia, who could match you in beauty, Miss Stone.” He smiled wide. “Her Ladyship has sent the wayward Omega back to her home.”

“Mmm...good. And you think she will remain faithful to us?”

“Oh yes, Miss Stone. Or I will hold her down whilst you smother her.”

“I knew I liked you, Russo.”

Olivia laughed. “Alright, alright you two, it's time to get Florence out of the tub unless you'd like her to be all wrinkled while she takes her vows.” Ever a Beta, she helped Florence into her lightweight gown and kissed her soundly, teasing away all of Florence's protestations that she might come into her heat overly soon if such an act was committed.

Feeling only a mite feverish, she found comfort in the presence of their Alpha who stood outside before the priest who, despite having been described by Alex as a drunkard, seemed to be rather sober. The servants stood about excitedly anxious, leaning between each other to capture a glimpse of the bride as they waited among the garden's olive trees for the ceremony to begin. The priest, knowing no English, could likely smell the coming heat on Florence's flesh, the scent renewed and stronger after the scents of the day had washed away. He made the thing blessedly short and did not seem to mind when Alex leaned over her and explained what all the words meant as the man was saying them.

“ _Vi dichiaro ora consorti. Congratulazioni._ ”

Alex sputtered a little laugh. “And now we're married. Would you like a kiss, little one?”

“I would like much more than a kiss.”

Olivia whispered from beside her. “ _Florence..._ ”

“Yes?”

The Alpha, of course, merely chuckled and took her by the waist, pulling her in for a searing little kiss that certainly had her blood rushing south and her nipples hardened to pink, wanting beads beneath her bodice. Her voice was husky when she backed away and her pupils had expanded greatly. “ _I'm ready to give you far more than a kiss, Contessa..._ ”

“Oh I could get used to this,” she replied, a giggle forming in her throat. “What say you, Beta?”

“I think I will tell Russo to bring us some refreshments and I'll meet you upstairs. How's that?”

Alex lifted her, carrying her like the bride she was whilst staring at her with clear lust. “Do not dawdle, Lady Olivia. Or I will have to rip myself from this one's arms to find you...and that is not ideal.”

“Of course, Alpha.”

Florence reached up, her fingers finding the softness of Alex's face and encouraging from her another kiss while she remained in her arms. It was more possessive than the last, a kiss that promised more beneath its facade of propriety. As much as Florence might have thought the woman may have held a preference for Olivia—there was something to be said about being an Omega.

_And being in heat._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh dear. What are we going to do when Tarantella is over? Gracious me. I really do love this story.


	15. Chapter 15

An Idlewind was always fierce. That was something her father had always said and something she herself would forever understand as truth. She had given pause just outside the chamber, staring at the outside of the door with three empty flutes in her hand while she waited for Russo to come up with the champagne. Though in these past days, she had found pleasure—so much pleasure—at the hands of a very giving and very generous Alpha, she could not imagine coming between mates—real mates.

_Real mates?_

She bit at her bottom lip rather harder than she intended.

_An Idlewind is always fierce!_

Whatever the hell she was thinking, she had better not be thinking it, she chastised, glaring at the outside of the door. She could hear Florence just beyond, the exquisite melody of her satisfaction muffled through the thick wood. She could imagine the ways that Alex was touching her. She could imagine all the ways the Alpha and the Omega might be so caught up in each other that they might have forgotten her. It hadn't happened yet, of course, but that did not mean that it could not happen now—and really, what could she do? Begrudge them? It was _Florence's_ wedding night. It was _Florence_ who was in heat. It was the _Omega_ who was the natural mate of an Alpha.

“Something the matter, my Lady?” came Russo's soft voice nearby. He was coming to her with a bucket of ice in one hand, his voice low as not to be heard on the other side of the door.

“Oh...” she sighed, passing her gaze between him and door. She was comforted by his presence and was glad to have him as a constant companion. He was quite good at buttoning up dresses and playing along with whatever charades were necessary among them. As a Beta, he was an ally. “It is only my natural predisposition toward...tentativeness.”

“What have you to be tentative about? Have you not come to know them both quite well already?”

“It is not that, Russo. It is mostly that I am an interloper.”

“How could you think so?” His dark brows were tight in the middle and he set down the champagne, the ice rattling in the bucket. “Oh Beta...you have not thought of this heat yet? You have not considered your role?”

“My role?”

“Oh yes. You see, Alpha and Omegas, they do not know quite what to do with a Beta sometimes.” He moved about his hands, as if fluttering them in the air could draw his answers from nonexistence. “They think they will understand but they cannot—a Beta is not drawn to being quiet or stable for no good reason! Our nature is to pacify and enhance. When they are emotional, we are level-headed. When all they can do is fuck, we can fuck _better._ ”

She let out a sudden quiet laugh. “Russo...”

“Hear me out,” he told her, his accent deepening with his smile, “you are a beautiful woman. You have two beautiful wives. They know who you are to them. Do you know who you are to them?”

“The Beta?”

“Ah, yes, but more than how you say it. You are _the Beta._ You are the one who keeps her mind when they are only emotions. You are the one who tells them that enough is enough or that they need to eat or drink. You are the one who can see with sharp eyes exactly what you can do to make a moment _orgasmic._ Do you understand?”

She moved her eyes to the side of the doorframe, lost in thought for a moment. She understood. Russo wasn't wrong. When all they could do was fuck—Olivia could fuck _better._

She gave him a sideways grin and he passed her one right back, wagging his pointer finger in the air. “I see you understand me now. Here is your champagne and there is a knife to open them. Go, _Beta_ , be who you are. Make them tremble with your powers. You will find yourself very much happier to embrace your strength.”

“Fierce,” she told herself.

“That's right,” Russo replied, snapping his gloved fingers with a muffled pop before he winked at her and turned away, sauntering down the hall as though he were a king in his own castle.

She was laughing a bit when she shook her head in sheer disbelief that she should have this conversation with her wife's valet. Despite all of this and despite her lingering tentativeness, she opened the door, emerging from the hall with champagne and flutes. She expected to find her wives in a tangle of naked limbs upon the bed but was surprised by their true occupation.

Florence was sitting in the chair by the vanity and Alex behind her, staring at the Omega in the mirror with her fingers buried in Florence's locks, massaging her scalp with slow, ruthless intensity that was causing the woman's jaw to fall open and hearty groans to fall from her lips.

“Oh gracious,” Olivia breathed, coming to the vanity and setting down the bucket and the glasses. “I thought you two were _mid-coitus_. I come to find that you've reduced her to this merely by playing with her hair. Surely this was something Florence told you that I regularly commit to?”

“Of course she did,” Alex smiled. “And I didn't wish to run too heavily toward becoming _mid-coitus_ without you. What fun is the orchestra without the first violin?”

“You are much too generous, Alpha.”

“I daresay she is not _much too generous_ ,” Florence told her, her voice lost with contentment as the massage continued. “She is _glorious_. Gods, how could we not have done this far sooner?” The last of her words tumbled into a long moan punctuated by a grand gasp of pleasure. Her blonde locks, now loose and a mess, tumbled over Alex's hands and Florence's face, her hair much longer than Olivia remembered it. “Olivia...” she groaned. “I'm going to lose myself to this heat. I'm soaking slick right into my dress. I'm going to ruin this seat. I want you to hold me.”

“Oh dear. Should you like some champagne?”

“Only if I can be rutted like some feral tramp while I drink it.”

Alex was letting out a low and rumbling sound that Olivia realized was a laugh. “I think, Omega, Olivia would love to hold you and I am in no way inhibited by her doing so or your drinking champagne in my actions.”

“That is to say that you will rut me like a feral tramp?”

“Should you like a knot?”

“As intimidating as that sounds, I think I would.”

Alex was grinning when she removed her hands from the Omega's head, smoothing her hair back before she placed a kiss on the top of her head. “Then I will certainly acquiesce. Remember, Olivia is to bite you. Where should you like it?”

She touched the slope of her shoulder. “Here.”

“Alright. And I shall bite Olivia...where would you like it, dearest?”

“I think where Valentine has his...” she placed her hand to the back of her neck and slid her fingertips downward toward her back. “It is so that it can be hidden...”

“Of course.”

“You're very clear-minded for being in rut, Alpha.”

Her smile was proud indeed. “I am a woman who has a rigid control over herself, I'll have you know. Though I am on the brink...as much as I think Florence is right now.” She leaned and swooped the girl from her seat on the chair, depositing her upon the bed before she turned away and motioned to Olivia to go to her while she reached for the champagne. There was a large wet spot of slick on the velvet of the chair and Alex crudely rubbed her fingertips against it and brought them to her nose before she uncorked the champagne with the knife.

While the Alpha attended to their drinks, Olivia took to disrobing her mate, pulling at her ribbons and giggling at Florence's hands over her while she sought to undress her. “Florence, if you keep distracting me, I'll never render you nude.”

“Yes you will,” she replied mischeiviously, tugging at Olivia's bodice and dipping one finger down between her breasts.

“You are a little devil.” She stared down at the girl smugly when she revealed her small, pink-tipped breasts to the early evening sunlight that poured in through the glass of the windows. A gentle breeze was flowing in from where they stood open and she could smell the sea and taste the salt on Florence's flesh when she dipped to take one sensitive nipple into her mouth to suckle.

_“Olivia...”_

Perhaps it really was fact that a Beta's true vocation was in keeping their mind during all things which an Alpha and an Omega must rely on instinct to accomplish. It seemed as though she could sense the very moment when Florence had relinquished all thought and had reverted toward a more primal state. It was this state that altered everything about her—the spirit around her, the scent that emitted from her body, and the sounds which cried out from her throat. She became more or less a primordial form, altered in part, of course, by the very presence of _Alpha_.

Olivia was undaunted. She stared down at her writhing little lover at the very moment Alex offered her champagne and she took it, sipping its dryness and reveling in the sweetness and spice of the scents around her. Big, feminine Alpha hands came around her possessively and cupped at her still-covered breasts, squeezing lightly while heavy breath came over her ear before selfish kisses nipped over her throat.

“Forgive me, Beta,” Alex told her. She did not wait for a reply before she grasped at Olivia's bodice, tearing it with a brutal force until it was shredded and in tatters along with her shift. Her drawers were similarly rended and discarded, leaving her quite naked and even moreso than Florence beaneath her who was still tangled with her dress and her drawers about her lower half. It took the Alpha merely a few tugs to divest the Omega of the rest of her clothes and it was only then that Olivia felt a strong hand upon her waist, sliding up to her breast to cup her and tease her.

Alex's weight came over the bed and the backs of her fingers softly tested her dampness that was revealed by her bent-over position. Finding her quite moist, the Alpha again tested her with a probing finger.

“Alpha, should you not tend to our Florence?”

“You tend to our Florence for now. She'll have her time with me...”

Olivia quirked one brow but slid her hand between her mate's legs, gently rubbing until Florence had spread her legs open like a wanton, groaning beneath her and gasping with every pleasured touch that passed over the center of her.

“Mmm,” Alex groaned, pressing the tip of herself into the Beta's passage and easing forward to fill her until the bulge of her knot prevented further penetration. “Kiss her, darling. Show her what we can do for her.” Of course, as Olivia obeyed the suggestion she felt the woman inside her begin a steady rocking motion that sought to impale her again and again, the tendrils of insidious pleasure beginning to uncoil with each press inside.

Florence was moaning into her mouth, her body gushing slick past the Beta's fingers, the sounds emanating from between her thighs erotic and wet. “S-Someone...” she gasped, “someone rut me! Someone take me! I want it!”

Alex was slapping against Olivia now, pounding her knot against the rim of her and gritting her teeth. “Ooh wait just a moment, darling. Wait just a moment, I've got to have you both and I can't very well plow my English wife after I've plowed you...”

“ _Uhn! Uhn!_ ” Florence cried, her hands tangling into Olivia's hair, holding her mate down while her body's tension mounted through the quick motions of the Beta's fingers over her hidden pearl. “ _Olivia! Olivia! Beta! Mate! Oh! Oh! Ohhhh!_ ” Fluid spurted out of her, warm and thin in two small splashes over the hand which pleased her. Her body spasmed with this first orgasm and at the end of it, when it seemed to peter out a bit, that was when Alex struck.

She exited the Beta and in one fluid motion she had plunged herself deep into Florence's body, reigniting the snuffed out flame of her passion with a critical immediacy that had even Olivia shocked. What had her more shocked was the sudden presence of the Alpha's hand between her legs, administering the same delightful torture she had just been bestowing upon her fairer mate.

“ _Oh, Alex..._ ”

The Alpha was butting up against her with every thrust she pounded into Florence, rocking her body against her hand until she was panting with excitement, dripping her mildly fragrant juices down her thighs and in strings onto the Omega beneath her. She stared downward and across the small space between herself and her Omega, their bodies so close while Alex teased and rutted between them. Just as Florence seemed almost too content with this steady fucking, the Alpha left her, plunging again into Olivia and inciting a small scream from her throat.

“The little one has already fractured in one climax—you're a bit of a harder nut to crack, Beta. Should you like me to bite you? I'll have to have you come first, you know.”

“Oh you will?” she asked as though a tease. She shouldn't tease, she knew. Mostly because she was already falling apart from the motion of the woman's hand and the mixture of aroused scents about her. She felt as though she could not possibly have had the sort of control Russo supposed of her. How could she when she felt as though the air about her was thick enough with her own lust and that she was held suspended in a whirlpool of desire? She could feel the mounting pressure of her climax, growing as a wave grows before it crashes into the shore. With every thrust of Alex's hips and every rock of the knot against the rim of her, she could feel herself tumbling closer and closer to the shuddering end she sought.

Alex's voice was low and rumbling and the very vibration of it as the woman's breasts came over Olivia's back was enough to cause her body to squeeze around the thick cock that invaded her. “ _Oh yes, Beta, I'm going to make you come so hard..._ ”

It didn't take long after that and she wasn't exactly surprised when it came just as Florence had tangled her hands in her hair and pulled her down for an impassioned kiss. She screamed into her mate's mouth, the sound becoming hard and desperate as the euphoria radiating through her soul was coupled with the profound and shocking pain of her claiming. Alex's teeth were sunk into her just where her neck met her back—just where she had requested it. It was a unique sort of pain and it mixed well in the throes of climax so that the aftermath was a balance of aching satiated bliss.

She nearly fell on top of Florence, her weight coming down over her but not entirely upon her. The invading force inside her slipped away and she felt Florence's body react to its re-entry, her lover gripping her hair harder, begging her nose down to the girl's throat and toward the slope of her shoulder where she had begged for her bite.

“ _Olivia! Mate! My Beta! My love! Uhn! Ahn! Please! Please! Please!_ ” Her voice was as breathless as she'd ever heard it, each statement coming in time with the hard rockings of their Alpha above them. “ _I want. A bite! Please! Knot me! Alpha!_ ”

She could feel the cost in Florence's body of the labor to knot her. She held the girl, kissed and nibbled at her ear, while Alex worked to press inside her that engorged bit at the based of her already impressive member. She could smell the pain working its way into the Omega's scent but the pleasure was thick enough still, the anticipation drowning out the unpleasantness even as the girl tensed and pulled at Olivia's tresses.

“ _You're alright, Omega,_ ” she whispered, pressing down as a comforting weight over her mate, testing her teeth upon Florence's flesh and gripping a little harder with every rolling press that Alex tried for a knot.

When, finally, the whole of it was settled inside and Florence screamed out her triumph, Olivia bit down hard and even harder when she felt the sting of her mate's nails in her scalp and on her back. When she released, she licked at the copper of blood on her lips and kissed her little, brave Omega as the Alpha behind her rutted her desperately, working against the seal they had made to pleasure her until the swell of climax took them both around her.

Alex, ever thoughful, took them both and eased them to their side, Olivia trapped then with her leg beneath Florence's weight and a fully stuck Alpha at her back. That very Alpha, winded, placed a comforting palm over Olivia's breast and kissed at the back of her head.

“Gods, I will never become tired of this sort of fucking. Two! Two of you! Perhaps whenever I am to only have one of you, it will feel incomplete...or perhaps it will be considered a bit of a respite.”

Olivia was giggling, worrying at her bottom lip as the woman pinched at her nipple. “You're to be trapped for a little while, Alpha. If I were you, I would abstain from toying with your Beta's breasts as this is one for certain avenue toward further play.”

“Perhaps I will recover well from this knotting and I will have reason to knot again,” she suggested easily.

“Knot me? I'm a _Beta_.”

“And?”

She let out a small, incredulous laugh. “Well then...I suppose we will have to consider the merits of such an idea.”

Florence hummed, her mouth forming a distinctly wolfish grin as she cracked an eye. “I do not have to consider the merits of this idea. It is a fantastic one. You've no idea, my love. They do say it is the pinnacle of sensual pleasure and I must agree. It is _rather_ nice. I should like to see how your body interprets it. I should like to see the way your tummy twitches when she's buried all the way inside you and you've stretched about this thick—”

“My lord, Florence,” Olivia sighed, closing her eyes as their Alpha began to tug harder on her nipple, her other hand coming about her to do the same for both breasts. “It is almost as though you were born for sensuality.”

“I'm an Omega,” she explained. “And I'm a disturbing little deviant.” She giggled, working her way forward to nibble at the Beta's chest, kissing and nipping while her little hand moved between Olivia's thighs, rubbing slowly against her and producing glittering sparkles of pleasure. “I couldn't be happier to have you here with me with your bite on my neck.”

“Mmm, and I couldn't be happier to have you here in my arms...surrounded by such soft and giving women...how blessed can I be for having found myself in the middle?”

Alex lapped at the bondmark she'd made upon the back of her neck, her breath light. “I daresay we'll all be taking our turn in the middle...at the least, I hope so. For I dearly love you both and I do not think myself capable of slumber should I touch merely one of you.”

“Ah,” Olivia smiled. “Then we shall be certain to sleep upon either side of you...and nap together in lazy days when you are working. We will curl like cats together in the warmth you leave behind in the mornings.”

“Hmm,” the Alpha hummed. “To live with such euphoria as to be so untroubled...that is the very sort of life I should wish for my wives.”

Florence was still grinning, her words floating along in the whirlpool of contentment about them. “ _My wives._ The two most wonderful words I've ever heard in my life...my wives... _oh how I love you._ ”

There was a murmur of agreement among them all as the ocean breeze fluttered the linen window panels and cooled their glistening flesh, the sun slowly sinking down across the Atlantic and splashing brilliant oranges and reds across a spreading purple sky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh...the end of this one... But no worries. Next week on Friday, I will begin posting a cute lil story about a mycologist and a Marchioness. ;D Not to mention I'm considering the release of another exclusive mA/mO... :3
> 
> If you're looking for more ways to interact with my stories and I, feel free to accept my invitation to my **[Discord Server](https://discord.gg/7U7P4z7)** where you can find not only myself but also others who have an interest in Omegaverse and my stories.


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